Newham Council is implementing a comprehensive strategy to tackle the borough's high rates of obesity, with a particular focus on children and young people.
The 50 Steps to a Healthier Borough
strategy, aligned with corporate priorities, aims for a whole-system approach involving various directorates and partners. The council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed the strategy on Tuesday, March 17, 2026, highlighting the significant prevalence of overweight and obesity in Newham.
Data presented to the committee revealed that nearly half of Year 6 children and 70% of adults in Newham have an unhealthy weight. For adults, Newham uses ethnicity-adjusted Body Mass Index (BMI) thresholds to identify when the risk of cardiometabolic disease becomes more likely. For Asian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, Black African, and African-Caribbean residents, these thresholds are: healthy weight (18.5–22.9), overweight (23.0–27.4), and obese (≥27.5). For Caucasian measures, it's underweight (<18.5), healthy weight (18.5–24.9), overweight (25–29.9), and obese (30+). Children's data is not adjusted for ethnicity. The National Childhood Measurement Programme (NCMP) shows that just under half of Year 6 children have an unhealthy weight. It is noted that BMI is a common but indirect measure and can be criticized for not being sensitive to body composition or fat distribution; community partners may use waist circumference and height as less problematic measures.
The 50 Steps to a Healthier Borough
strategy is Newham's overarching plan for improving diet and weight, aligned with wider council vision and priorities, including the Just Transition Climate action plan and Newham's Building a Fairer Newham Corporate Delivery Plan. Sixteen of these steps directly or indirectly improve diet and weight. The strategy prioritizes the 'start of life' with whole system and whole school approaches. The Diet and Weight steps in the 2024-27 strategy include: 'Give babies and children under five the best start in life', 'Enhance the role played by schools, Youth Zones and other settings for children and young people in enabling good health and wellbeing', 'Support children and young people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight', 'Support adults and older people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight', 'Reduce the prevalence and impact of long-term conditions on residents' lives', 'Continue to grow whole-school approaches to food', 'Create a healthier food environment', 'Nurture a local food culture of eating well, sustainably, for a just transition to a green economy', 'Continue to improve food security for all residents', 'Increase active and sustainable travel through schools, employers and faith organisations', 'Increase access to leisure and sport through community-based programmes', 'Deliver a high-quality and accessible sport and physical activity offer in Newham', 'Deliver high-quality leisure facilities and infrastructure', 'Support residents to achieve financial security', 'Improve health literacy and cultural competence across Newham', and 'Improve equity in health and care by creating a culture of curiosity and improvement'.
Newham Council plans to sustain cross-directorate working and overcome challenges through a 'whole system, multiagency approach' to improving diet and weight. This is embedded across core strategies like the '50 Steps to a Healthier Borough', the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), and wider corporate plans. Public Health acts as the system lead, with oversight through the Health and Wellbeing Board, and additional corporate delivery plan governance through the Leadership Board and Cabinet. The '50 Steps' strategy is aligned with other council and NHS strategic commitments. Partnership working is facilitated through forums like the Newham Food Alliance Partnership Meetings, Social Welfare Alliance, Climate Action Group, Sustainable Food Newham, Headteacher's KIT and School Business Manager Forums, and the Royal Docks Food & Beverage Board. Internally, partners from across the council contribute their expertise to shape and embed the '50 Steps' in their service areas. The report also highlights that 'sustained and well-targeted investment in obesity prevention not only improves health, wellbeing and health equity, but can prevent pressure in services'. Challenges such as increasing demand on services and national policy changes are acknowledged, with the council adapting its approach to ensure best value and seeking to mitigate risks through strategies like recommissioning services and working with partners.
The strategy includes initiatives such as promoting healthy food environments through planning policies, supporting active travel, and delivering targeted weight management programmes. The Active Lives Survey indicates that 31% of adults in Newham are inactive (less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week), which is higher than London and England averages. For children and young people (age 5-16), 33% are less active (less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week), an improvement from previous years but still above regional benchmarks.
Key challenges identified include increasing demand on services, the impact of national policy changes, and the need for sustained cross-directorate working. Despite these challenges, the council is pursuing various initiatives, including the Eat Well Newham
programme, Healthy Schools London
initiatives, and the BetterPoints
app to incentivise active travel.
The 'Eat Well Newham' programme is described as a cross-cutting initiative that connects food affordability and access, healthier advertising, and culturally competent health promotion. It includes 'Healthier Advertising across council owned sites', 'Shop healthy to develop healthier retail', 'Fruit and Veg on prescription', and 'Culturally competent food and dietary advice and linked champions'. The programme reported directly to the Health and Wellbeing Board until Autumn 2025. Specific KPIs and targets for 'Eat Well Newham' are not detailed in the provided text.
For the 'BetterPoints' app, launched in March 2024, the key performance indicators and targets include: By March 2026, the programme had 3,105 users, broadly reflecting Newham's diversity. Women (especially teenage girls and women aged 35–45) and disabled residents were well represented, while participation was lower among Other White, Black African, and Bangladeshi groups. Sabeela, a Stratford resident, reported losing 13 kilograms and making lasting changes to her daily routine as a result of the 'Newham School's challenge' on BetterPoints. Insights from the first two years are shaping 2026/27 priorities, including targeted outreach to under-represented communities, a new 'Travel for Worship' in-App challenge, and work to reach residents with long-term conditions such as diabetes.
Case studies presented to the committee showcased successful interventions, such as the Eat Well Newham
programme, which aims to improve food affordability and access, and the Young Health Changemakers
initiative, empowering young people to promote health within their communities.
Resident insight is being translated into tangible changes within the obesity strategy through several mechanisms. The 'Eat Well Newham' programme is co-produced with residents, Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector organisations, and anchor partners. The '50 Steps to a Healthier Borough' strategy includes equity objectives that aim to ensure interventions are representative of Newham's population and address disproportionate impacts on specific groups.
Case studies illustrate how resident insight is gathered and used: Engaging new mothers on healthy weight through a partnership pilot with Mummy's Day Out (MDO) involved mothers in walk-and-talk meet-ups, online surveys, and focus groups to co-produce an insight deck. Findings highlighted that the main gap is not knowledge but 'the doing' due to childcare, cost, proximity, timing, and cultural fit. This insight is earmarked to inform bespoke services for new and expecting mothers, including timing of support, women-only provision, culturally adapted advice, and simplified access routes. The 'Ramadan Champions' programme trains volunteers from Muslim communities to share diet-related advice and promote healthy lifestyle changes during Ramadan, utilizing trusted community voices and culturally sensitive messaging. Insights from the 'BetterPoints' app user feedback are shaping 2026/27 priorities, including targeted outreach to under-represented communities and new challenges tailored to specific groups. Residents, carers, and those with lived experience have been involved in shaping Adult Social Care services and strategies.
Mechanisms for ongoing and meaningful engagement include: The '50 Steps to a Healthier Borough' strategy has specific equity objectives for each step. Public Health leads on 'Well Newham: Behaviour change, Health literacy, campaigns and signposting infrastructure, VCFSE partnerships'. The Newham Food Alliance involves 40 VCFSE partners, ensuring community-rooted organizations are engaged in food security and health promotion. The 'Eat Well Newham' programme aims to build the broadest possible coalition of partners in Newham engaged and accountable. The Council's new Resident Involvement Strategy and Resident Challenge Board scrutinize progress on improvement programmes.
Efforts are also being made to improve healthy eating among early years settings, with a programme that has seen 100% of participating settings meeting nutritional requirements. Furthermore, the council is working to create healthier food environments through planning policies, including restrictions on hot food takeaways near schools and promoting healthier markets and events.
The strategy acknowledges the importance of resident insight, with engagement through schools, communities, and the voluntary and community sector informing obesity-related work. The council is also working to strengthen strategic relationships with partners, including the NHS and voluntary sector organisations, to ensure a coordinated approach to tackling obesity.
More information on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee's work can be found in their Public reports pack and Supplementary Agenda.
