Last updated: 10/09/2024
Mass media campaigns
Fund and roll out mass media campaigns aiming to promote healthy eating
- Moderate impact on obesity
A percentage estimate of how much the policy would reduce national obesity rates
- Relative reduction in obesity prevalence: 0.6%
- High evidence quality
A rating of the strength of evidence, accounting for both reliability and validity of the evidence
- Reliability and validity rating: 4/5
- Low cost to governments
Cost to UK and devolved governments over 5 years
- Costs to governments over 5 years: £5m
- Benefit to governments per year: £0.3bn
What is the policy?
This policy would result in the UK Government funding and implementing nationwide mass media campaigns that promote healthy eating, as part of a strategy to reduce the prevalence of obesity. A mass media campaign typically uses a combination of formats, such as digital, television, radio, social media, magazines and posters, to reach large numbers of people about a particular topic. The aim of a mass media campaign is to increase public awareness and induce behavioural change.
Recent context
In 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) launched the Better Health mass media campaign. The campaign, among other things, offered free support and guidance to those working towards a healthier weight. The Better Health website also includes access to free tools and ideas to help people start to make healthier choices. The Better Health campaign is still active, and is just one example of a recent mass media campaign within the UK that is focused on healthy eating and reducing obesity.
In Wales, Public Health Wales led on the Healthy Weight, Healthy You campaign which supports the Welsh Government’s Healthy Weight, Healthy Wales strategy. The multi-media campaign, based on user experience and behavioural insight research, aims to encourage people to adopt healthier behaviours linked to dietary shifts. This active campaign directs people to a public facing website that provides tools and support for users to better manage their weight. Expanding this campaign to UK-wide mass media would require working with the UK Government and embracing Welsh-language media outlets.
The Scottish Government regularly runs public health campaigns on issues such as physical activity, vaping and healthy eating, within the Healthier Scotland brand. Food Standards Scotland also runs a national healthy eating campaign, Eat Well, Your Way, providing information and resources to consumers.
Case studies
Go for 2 and 5, Australia
Go for 2 and 5 was a three-year campaign which launched in 2000. This campaign was aimed at raising awareness and understanding of the recommended daily intake for fruit and vegetables and improving fruit and vegetable content in people’s diets. The campaign featured striking artwork in the form of animated characters made from fruit and vegetables. Ads were shown on a range of media channels including television, radio, print and at point-of-sale. Evaluation of the campaign suggested it successfully raised awareness of the recommended daily diet and increased intake of fruit and vegetables in some subgroups. It did not lead to reductions in weight.
Change4Life, England
The Change4Life initiative was initially a three-year public health campaign in England. The campaign was introduced in 2009 through a widespread television and print advertising campaign, complemented by a hotline and dedicated website. Subsequently, three TV adverts – Me Size Meals, 60 Active Minutes, Snack Check and Sugar Swaps – aired nationally. The campaign encouraged small and sustainable behavioural changes, focusing on diet and physical activity. The target audience was families, particularly those with children under 11 years. Traditional marketing and media strategies and tactics were central to the campaign, particularly in framing the initiative and creating a brand.
After the first year of the campaign it achieved high visibility (99% of mothers of children under the age of 11) and 30% of mothers who had been aware of the campaign reportedly changed their behaviour in response. Government analysis also suggested change was evident in the food purchasing behaviour of families who engaged most with Change4Life relative to a comparison group. In particular, changes were observed in increased purchasing of low-fat milks and low-sugar drinks. Despite evidence of behavioural change in subgroups, England’s obesity prevalence has continued to rise for both adults and children since the launch of the national campaign.
Considerations for implementation
There are no specific implementation requirements, such as a legislation change, that would be required for the UK and devolved governments to roll out a mass media campaign that targeted healthy eating. The UK and devolved governments frequently roll out mass media campaigns around issues of public concern.
Public health is a devolved matter and it is within the powers of the Welsh and Scottish Governments to fund their own campaigns. Although broadcasting is reserved, when implementing a UK-wide campaign the UK Government should work in collaboration with the Scottish Government to ensure that the campaign could be embraced by Scottish media outlets (eg, BBC Scotland, BBC ALBA and the Scottish print media).
Estimating the population impact
We estimated that this policy would reduce the prevalence of UK obesity rates by approximately 0.6%
Estimating the per-person impact
We did not identify any evaluations of media campaigns run in the UK (eg, Change4Life) that included outcomes that we could include in our analytical model.
Data for modelling impact was taken from Morley et al. (2019), a cohort study evaluating the impact of the LiveLighter sugary drinks campaign. After the campaign, the authors reported a 6% point reduction in frequent sugar sweetened beverage consumption). View a summary of the study, and our method for identifying the data.
Estimating the population reach
In our analytical model, we applied the effect sizes to people living with overweight or obesity. For adults, that is people aged 18 or above with a BMI of 25+ (or 23+ for specific ethnic groups). For children, that is children aged 5–17 with a BMI z-score BMI z-score ≥85th percentile.
Changes in the prevalence of people living with obesity
Table 1 shows the percentage reduction of adults and children moving from BMI≥30 into a healthier BMI category following the introduction of a mass media campaign on health (five-year follow up).
We are in the process of modelling the impact for children and will update findings upon completion.
| Adults (England and Wales) | Children (England and Wales) | Adults (Scotland) | Children (Scotland) |
| 0.6% | In progress | 0.4% | In progress |
Cost and benefits
Cost over five years
We estimated that this policy would cost the governments approximately £5 million over five years
We commissioned HealthLumen to estimate the cost of the policy to both industry and governments over a five-year period. View the full report.
Table 2 below shows a breakdown of costs. The direct costs to the governments are estimated at approximately £5 million. The costs to the food industry are not applicable here.
| Group affected | Cost | Horizon | Detail |
| Costs | |||
| Government | £5m | Annual (5 years) | Design and implementation of advertising campaign |
Total annual benefit
We estimated that this policy would have an annual benefit of approximately £0.3 billion.
Using analysis conducted by the Tony Blair Institute and Frontier Economics we estimate this policy would result in benefits of approximately £0.3 billion per year. Approximately two-thirds of this saving would benefit individuals (via quality-adjusted life years, and informal social care). The remaining third relates to savings that benefit the state via NHS treatment costs, productivity and formal social care. See our method for more information about the cost breakdowns.
Impact on disease incidence
We commissioned HealthLumen to report disease incidence avoided if the policy were implemented. These estimates do not represent the total health benefits. The specific diseases selected are those where there is good evidence that living with obesity is associated with the development of the disease.
Table 3 presents a summary of incidence avoided.
| Disease | Incidence avoided |
| Type 2 diabetes | 9,864 |
| Hypertension | 5,119 |
| Coronary heart disease | 2,870 |
| Colorectal cancer | 1,067 |
| Gall bladder disease | 8,957 |
| Ovarian cancer | Not statistically significant |
| Stroke | Not statistically significant |
| Liver cancer | Not statistically significant |
| Depression | Not statistically significant |
| Musculoskeletal disease | 2,260 |
Behind the averages: impact on inequalities
Disparities in campaign reach
Campaign reach is influenced by duration and frequency of exposure to adverts. Health inequalities could be exacerbated by campaigns if they don’t reach the groups in greatest need – for example through prioritising the wrong platforms or airing campaigns at times when certain groups are unlikely to see them. Individuals for whom English is not their first language risk being excluded from exposure to the campaign.
Campaigns that solely promote individual responsibility are at risk of exacerbating weight stigma.
Rating the strength of evidence
We asked experts working in the fields of obesity, food, and health research to rate the strength of the evidence base for each policy, taking into account both reliability (size and consistency) and validity (quality and content) of the evidence. Policies were rated on a Likert scale of 1–5 (none, limited, medium, strong, and very strong evidence base). The Blueprint Expert Advisory Group rated this policy as having a Strong evidence base.
Ban on all HFSS price promotions in food retail businesses
Ban all price promotions (e.g. was/now prices, introductory prices, temporary price reductions) of HFSS foods in the retail sector excluding small and micro businesses