Food & Health Alliance

Community Health Dietitian Jill Malcolm explains that NHS Fife’s Chief Executive was on holiday in Missouri when he came across a health event encouraging small teams of individuals to come together to lose weight. In its sixth year of operation, the programme was organised on a competitive basis with big prizes and was achieving dramatic results. “When he returned he asked us: can’t we do something like this in Fife?” Jill recalls.

The result has been the Kingdom Weight Challenge which was launched last January, attracting many more people than the organisers had expected and in its first 10-week programme leading to an average weight loss of 3kg per participant.

The scheme, which is a joint enterprise between NHS Fife, Fife Council, Fife Sports and Leisure Trust and the Kingdom Shopping Centre, Glenrothes, was open to teams of four and involved dietary and exercise advice as well as weekly weighing sessions in the shopping centre between January and March 2011. Dietitians, nurses, health promotion staff and fitness advisers were on hand to provide support and advice.

The Challenge – which offered a prize, provided by the local radio station, of an overnight stay in a luxury hotel for the winning team - was widely advertised on local radio as well as outlets like health centres, libraries and pharmacies. But when it began none of the staff knew what to expect. “We were aiming for 125 teams but we would have been happy if 50 or 60 applied,” says Jill.

In the event 132 teams turned up and when the doors opened at 8am on that first morning there was already a queue! Although some of those teams did drop out later, 63% continued to the end – a much higher retention rate than in many similar schemes.

There was great community spirit with some teams even having team t-shirts made up.  One team called ‘The Bridal Party’ consisted of a bride-to-be wanting to lose weight for her wedding in the summer along with her mother, father and bridesmaid.

Significantly, the average weight loss for all the teams who finished the programme and completed at least eight of the 10 sessions was higher, at 4.8%, than the average of 3.3%. And the winning team – calling themselves Yes butt! No butt!! – achieved average weight losses of over 10%.

The mean BMI for participants was 33 and ranged from 23 – 60 with 62% being in the obese category and 35% overweight.  By the end the proportion in the clinically obese category had been reduced by 9%.

So what does Jill attribute the event’s success to? The timing at the start of January was certainly one factor. “People always make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight then but don’t always follow through. This made them think about it more.”

The fact the weighing was carried out in a shopping centre, making it more anonymous than, say, a slimming club, may have appealed to some people. But perhaps more importantly, the team approach encouraged people to support each other. “Maybe if you’re part of a team you will stick it out a bit longer as you don’t want to let the rest of the team down,” she suggests.

Interestingly, while 60% of participants said their main reason for joining up was to lose weight, 16% pointed to the team aspect, 10% were most influenced by it being free, 7% said timing, 6% location and just 1% the prize!

The big challenge, Jill acknowledges, is ensuring that those involved in the scheme maintain their good habits afterwards. A six-month follow-up attracted a small response but all who attended weighed less than when they started out in January. Meanwhile several workplaces have invested in sets of scales to continue the good work.

The organisers are planning to run the Challenge again at the start of next year with 600 rather than 500 participants and in two towns – Glenrothes and Dunfermline – rather than one.

 For further information contact Jill Malcolm on 01592 226512 or email jillmalcolm@nhs.net