The approach to improving nutrition and physical activity outcomes is built from an understanding that people accumulate risk over a lifetime and any strategy must focus on the whole of the life course.
People are not isolated ‘units’ but are interactive social beings who make decisions within a context of family/whanau, friends, work and leisure activities.
They are influenced by the beliefs and behaviours of those close to them.
People also respond to their environment. It is not a change in people that has led to the obesity explosion of the last 25 years but a change in factors such as the food supply and our lifestyle being increasingly dependent on technology.
Our solutions therefore must aim to make it easier for individuals to make healthy choices within the context of community and environment.
We need to know what to measure to see if we are making progress.
The outcomes we want to achieve include: