Healthy Living Case Study 1

Healthier Catering in Leisure Centres, Evaluation of the Pilot Initiative

Wavehill was commissioned to undertake an evaluation of the Welsh Assembly Government's Healthier Catering in Leisure Centres pilot project, the purpose of which was to join up healthy eating and physical activity initiatives.

The pilot project and evaluation were initiated in response to the Food and Fitness Action Plan and designed to assess how customers responded to the availability of healthy options and how the pilot leisure centres succeeded in marketing healthier food and drink. The evaluation included monitoring the amount of 'healthy' food and drink sold at each participating centre, undertaking a qualitative study of customer attitudes to assess impact and preferences, and evaluating the success of each centre's activities so that instances of best practice could be shared and adopted elsewhere.

The difficulty with this evaluation was that there were no indicators being monitored. We devised a simple set, such as "How many litres of bottled drinking water are distributed in the Gym?" and then used these measures to add some quantitative measures to the report.

Client: Welsh Assembly Government - Public Health and Health Professions Department