Australia’s Healthy Weight Week January 24-31, 2010

Australia’s Healthy Weight Week (AHWW) is over for another year and what a success it has been! Over 2000 people committed to making a change via the AHWW website and we distributed more resources than ever before including in excess of:

5000 reusable shopping bags
18 000 AHWW brochures
2500 AHWW promotional posters
2200 Food & Exercise records

AHWW was mentioned 44 times in papers, magazines, online, on radio and on TV and reached over 6 million people. And this figure does not include all circulation figures for TV, online or radio items, so the actual number of Australians reached would be higher still!

Events and activities around the country

There were lots of events around the country both in the community and in workplaces - see below for some great examples!

Border Express

Australian Unity

Cairns Base Hospital

Robina Hospital

TOWN Club Cohuna (VIC)

Border Express

Border Express Pty Ltd is an interstate transport and distribution company. They distributed 700 AHWW reusable bags nationally. Each bag included an A5 AHWW brochure, a water bottle an orange and a muesli bar and it looks like they were well received!

Australian Unity

Australian Unity is a national healthcare, financial services and retirement living organisation. Activities were led by a team of Accredited Practising Dietitians (APDs) and Nurses and included:

Healthy eating stalls
Showbags
Healthy cafe meals
A ‘Move more’ expo showcasing exercise options
Healthy BBQ lunch
Information on their intranet

Cairns Base Hospital

The APDs at Cairns Base Hospital had no idea how much fun they would have when they started organising their AHWW activities! They had a daily stand on the ground floor of the hospital with competitions, prizes, free brochures, aprons, cookbooks and AHWW bags as well as nutrition assessments & advice. They received great support from local businesses and made good use of the free AHWW resources. Vege Man made a daily appearance to support the healthy eating and healthy lifestyle message.

The APDs released details of AHWW to the media and as a result, two local television news teams ran stories on the activities, an article appeared in the Cairns Post and they did 2 radio interviews. Well done Cairns Base Hospital!

Robina Hospital

AHWW at Robina Hospital saw the start of their very own 10-week 'biggest loser' staff challenge. The event is being run by APDs and Speech Pathologists and approximately 55 staff members have signed up. Participants are from a range of professions including nurses, foodservice, environmental serves, allied health and even consultants. Resources from the AHWW website have been provided and participants weigh in weekly, receive weekly email encouragement, and participate in education sessions throughout the challenge.

After one week almost all staff had lost weight, and were motivated to keep the momentum flowing, coming forward with ideas of activities to do together, 'challenges' and rewards. Prizes will be awarded for both the individual and the ward/department with the greatest % body weight lost. The response and excitement it has generated at the hospital is amazing!

The results are in!

At the end of the 10 week challenge, participants had lost an average of 2.2% body weight (between 0-6.8kg) and up to 9 centimetres off their waist. Approximatley 22% were highly motivated and lost over 5kg (an average of 0.5kg per week). A number of participants indicated that the AHWW challenge helped to start their journey to becoming healthier and fitter. Everyone involved was grateful for the opportunity and indicated they would continue to lose weight to reach their goals.

AHWW 2011 is shaping up to be even bigger and better with Robina's dietitian investigating the opportunity to conduct an even larger, multi-strategy approach for the whole Gold Coast district. The response to this health initiative was overwhelming and all involved should be congratulated.

TOWN Club Cohuna (VIC)

Take Off Weight Naturally (TOWN) Club Cohuna (VIC) started a 6 week challenge during Australia’s Healthy Weight Week 2010. Each week, members received literature which was discussed at their weekly meeting. A "button" was also awarded to the member who lost the most weight as a weight loss incentive. When someone joins a TOWN CLUB, they receive a felt scarf, and buttons received are sewn onto the scarf as a symbol of their weight loss journey. Member’s are proud to wear their scarves at weekly meetings and also to meetings at other TOWN clubs around Victoria. TOWN Club Cohuna received green AHWW bags to support their AHWW activities and the bags are still being used to carry shopping and also belongings to TOWN meetings.