A coordination view of Camden’s Healthy Weight Acceleration Plan
Camden’s Health & Wellbeing Department convenes a Multi-Agency Healthy Weight Driving Group — schools, community organisations, primary care, adult social care and residents working from one plan rather than forty separate initiatives. This page pulls together what that group has built over its first two years, what it’s doing next, and where it connects into the wider Food as Infrastructure portfolio.
The Driving Group exists so that health, education, VCS and community partners are working from the same plan and the same evidence — the same logic the wider food portfolio uses to coordinate across boroughs, applied here across Camden’s own services and partners.
The Health & Wellbeing Department convenes and drives the plan; Reablement and adult social care teams, the Integrated Early Years Service, and the Learning Disabilities team deliver it on the ground.
Family Hubs, nurseries, Kingsgate Primary, Hampstead, Acland Burghley, St Albans, Edith Neville and Richard Cobden are all live delivery sites for one part of the plan or another.
Queens Crescent Community Association and local religious leaders, Brite Box, MoreLife, Arsenal’s Shape Up, the Gospel Oak Living Room, the London Irish Centre and Youth Sport Trust each carry a piece of delivery no council team could reach alone.
Help people of all ages reach and stay at a healthy weight, close the gap between Camden’s most and least deprived residents, and do it through a mix of whole-system change and support tailored to the people who need it most.
Camden’s reception-age obesity prevalence has been tracking below the national rate since around 2014/15 — though the gap between the most and least deprived areas persists, and Bangladeshi, Indian and Chinese communities show lower prevalence in Camden than the White British population, evidence that a single national picture hides different local stories. Seven examples from the Driving Group’s first two years show the pattern behind that number: identify a specific barrier, respond with something tailored, then decide what’s worth scaling.
Issue: frontline professionals often lack the confidence and consistent materials to have good conversations about food and nutrition.
Response: Nutrition & Hydration training built by the Health & Wellbeing Dept, delivered to all Reablement staff — 5 sessions, 75 staff trained.
2026/27: rolled out to other adult social care teams via a train-the-trainer model, starting with Extra Care staff.
Issue: residents find it hard to understand units of alcohol, which blunts messaging on harmful drinking — and higher drinking directly affects healthy weight.
Response: the 3-month “Know What You’re Drinking” campaign — 2,400 webpage views, paid social ads seen 72,000 times.
2026/27: a dedicated resident-facing healthy-weight campaign, built on what worked here.
Issue: how to support families of Year 6 children (height/weight recorded nationally) to cook easy, nutritious meals together.
Response: Family Dinners piloted at Kingsgate Primary with Brite Box — children ate more vegetables, everyone learned new skills.
2026/27: extends into Year 4 at Kilburn for earlier prevention, plus a local Year 6 scheme at Edith Neville & Richard Cobden with menus co-developed with residents.
Crosses into the portfolio’s Hub trackIssue: families in temporary accommodation face greater risk of poor health and malnutrition — lack of equipment, knowledge and cost are the main barriers.
Response: a “one pot” programme providing slow cookers plus workshops with VCS partners.
2026/27: rolled out to 43 families at Levine & Abbotts family hostel, then to other accommodation if successful.
Issue: overweight and obesity is more common among South Asian communities.
Response: the Healthy Muslim Families Working Group with Queens Crescent Community Association and local religious leaders — health checks via the Health & Wellbeing Bus at Friday Prayers and Mothers’ groups, leaflets co-designed with a local Imam, a Muslim GP speaking at prayers.
2026/27: ongoing work with the Bus team across communities at greater risk.
Issue: unhealthy weight is a major driver of health conditions for people with learning disabilities, who need genuinely tailored support.
Response: a piloted approach at the Greenwood Centre with Camden’s Learning Disabilities team and MoreLife — interactive, accessible content, support workers included.
2026/27: a further session before autumn 2026, with more practical cooking and physical-activity content.
Issue: young people can be powerful advocates for change, if given the platform.
Response: the Food & Health Champions programme returned at Hampstead School, leading to the pupil-led “veggie vibes” initiative and more vegetable access across the school day.
2026/27: another Hampstead cohort, expanding to Acland Burghley and St Albans Primary.
Training front-line workers, easy access to local support pathways, consistent messaging for parents and staff, and Family Hubs as the delivery setting that ties it together.
“Nutrition for under 5s” and “Public Health Priorities” modules, developed last year, extended to Private, Voluntary and Independent settings — mainly nurseries.
By October 2026, to ensure they meet the needs of children and families and are easy to navigate.
Also reaching young people at school — promoting healthy behaviours and local, low-cost physical activity.
Guidance on food available on site and healthy celebrations, with an easier path through the levels for greater impact. Launch event in summer term.
And the practical support that could help — completed by September 2026.
Reaching an estimated 400+ more children (subject to Youth Sport Trust funding) — 34 settings trained since October 2024.
NICE published guidance in January 2025 on overweight and obesity, including recommendations that preventive communications be clear, consistent, specific, non-judgemental and tailored to need. Two workshops with Families for Life Champions and other Community Champions point the same way: residents want tailored communications reaching into communities, alongside general information through organisation channels — delivered through culturally competent channels including group chats like WhatsApp, and with real appetite among parents to be upskilled in public health messaging, without any further commitment expected of them.
Built with different communities directly, not translated after the fact — the same logic behind the Healthy Muslim Families work above.
Fold specific healthy-weight input into campaigns that already have reach — such as the “Look After You” campaign, developed by young people in Camden for under-25s.
Ensure information on key local services has good reach across the platforms and channels residents actually use.
The Healthy Weight Acceleration Plan and the wider Food as Infrastructure portfolio grew up side by side in Camden, and the overlaps aren’t a coincidence — they’re the same underlying moves, seen from the health side rather than the food-system side.
Family Dinners, the Health & Wellbeing Bus, and Family Hubs are exactly the neighbourhood delivery points the portfolio’s Hub track describes — the (Farmacy) concept of a local node people already trust, doing more than its original job.
Bringing food insecurity to the forefront of crisis planning — and making it a shared priority across council teams, not just the Health & Wellbeing Department’s own workstream — is the same case the portfolio makes for a Local Food Resilience Committee.
Camden’s own “money-first” thinking, in-sourcing school catering away from a for-profit model, and using something like a local currency to give people choice without losing direction — these are municipal-instrument questions the Sovereign Food System portfolio is built to work through.
The Driving Group’s community and VCS partners sit close to the same food hubs and markets this working group is mapping and coordinating — a natural link so neither effort duplicates the other.
Alongside the plan itself, conversations between the Health & Wellbeing team and the wider Food as Infrastructure work surfaced a longer list of ideas worth exploring further — directions for where this could go if the constraints eased. None of these are commitments yet, but each one lands on ground the portfolio is already working on, from a different angle.
Bags of Taste already gets people cooking healthier food through social prescribing. One idea being explored is to extend that into ongoing access to healthy food for as long as someone needs it, not just a few weeks of ingredients and recipes. It’s expensive, and how it sits alongside Camden’s money-first approach to welfare support is still an open question — but it’s the same shape as the portfolio’s own case for a neighbourhood food-and-health node.
Crosses into the Hub track’s (Farmacy) conceptGiving residents money rather than food or services builds independence, but it doesn’t automatically build toward healthier choices or a stronger local economy. A Camden-specific currency — spendable with real freedom, but structured to nudge spending toward healthy, local options — was raised as a way to keep both.
Crosses into the portfolio’s local currency instrumentsHowever well any single programme performs, the Healthy Weight Acceleration Plan’s population goals run into the same wall: healthy food usually costs more than unhealthy food. Closing that gap borough-wide, not just within one scheme at a time, was named as the change everything else depends on.
Crosses into Universal Basic Nutrient Income & true-cost pricingCamden looked at moving school catering away from a for-profit contract before, and stepped back because in-sourcing was too expensive up front. A public company majority-owned by the council, de-risked by private capital that’s repaid over time until the council holds it outright, was floated as a way to make that transition affordable — with case studies from other UK councils as the next step to test it.
Crosses into municipal procurement & patient capitalRight now, cross-borough conversation on food and health happens mostly through London’s obesity working group, as and when it comes up. A more structured, regular convening of health and food leads across boroughs — building on the Future Food Dinner format already tested in Camden — was raised as the next step toward genuine peer learning, not just occasional contact.
Crosses into the portfolio’s coalition of boroughs
