Only 6% of men and 4% of women in England manage the recommended 150 minutes of weekly moderate exercise. This research tests four practical, low-cost interventions to get people moving more and sitting less, targeting the two-thirds of the population who are overweight or obese. One intervention, called “snacktivity,” breaks exercise into short bursts throughout the day rather than requiring a single gym session. Another tests “PACE” food labels that tell shoppers how many minutes of running it would take to burn off a cake or a sandwich. A third programme embeds a brief weight-management check for new mothers into their baby’s routine immunisation appointments, making use of existing NHS contacts. If these approaches work, they could be rolled out across GP surgeries, cafeterias, and child health clinics without requiring new infrastructure or specialist staff. The fourth workstream establishes a dedicated research centre to ensure future interventions are designed with input from patients, commissioners, and industry, so they fit real-world NHS settings rather than remaining academic exercises.
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Background: More than two thirds of the population are either overweight/obese because of excessive energy intake and/or insufficient physical activity. Based on objective assessment only 6% of men and 4% of women in England achieve 150-min per/week of moderate intensity physical activity in line with guidance. Approximately 6-10% of global mortality associated with non-communicable diseases is due to physical inactivity, yet there is compelling evidence that inactivity and high levels of sitting are both independently associated with disease and mortality. This is of real concern and there is no reason to assume this will improve unless effective population interventions are put in place. Aims and Objectives: This application involves four workstreams to develop and test innovative lifestyle interventions to address the problem of physical inactivity, sedentary behaviours and overweight. It seeks to involve and combine the individual, NHS and environment. The application builds directly on work funded by NIHR and my previous NIHR senior fellowship. There is a particular emphasis on delivering pragmatic evaluations in conjunction with health services, patients and the public. There is a focus on testing interventions that meet the ambition of the NHS to 'make every contact count'. Objective: 1: Develop and test a snacktivity intervention to promote physical activity in the population Objective 2: Obtain public feedback on the usefulness of physical activity calorie equivalent food labelling (PACE) when making food choices and evaluate the usefulness of PACE labelling in real life contexts. PACE is an approach where by the number of calories in food is displayed in the number of minutes of activity required to expend a food/drink item (e.g. this cake requires 45 minutes of running to burn). Objective 3: Investigate the feasibility of implementing a brief weight management programme for postnatal women embedded within the national child immunisation programme. Objective 4: Develop a world class Centre for Public Health Physical Activity Research at Loughborough University. Methods: Programme 1 involves early phase studies to develop a 'snacktivity' intervention, prior to testing in feasibility and effectiveness trials. Programme 2 will investigate feasibility and acceptability of physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) food labelling in a café/cafeteria environment and whether PACE labelling encourages physical activity. Programme 3 focuses on women who have recently given birth and tests the procedures involved in delivering an intervention where practice nurses routinely promote self-monitoring of weight within the national child immunisation programme/appointments. Programme 4 aims to establish a world class Centre for Public Health Physical Activity Research by working in partnership with patients, health professionals, commissioners, policy makers and industry to ensure our work is relevant to the public and the NHS. Outputs: My ambition is to evaluate lifestyle interventions that can be easily implemented within the NHS and public health settings, to reduce diseases. This award will provide opportunities to develop a large team of researchers and help them become independent researchers in this field. This award will develop my senior research leadership skills and allow me to firmly establish myself as a world expert in physical activity research.
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