Supporting healthier eating

Camden’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy focuses on wellbeing and healthy lifestyles, including healthy eating. Local people have told Healthwatch Camden that they know what healthy eating is but that they face challenges such as lack of access to affordable fresh food. Healthwatch wanted to explore this topic further to find out if people on low incomes have difficulty in buying, cooking and eating healthy food including culturally appropriate food.

Healthwatch spoke to people attending cooking classes run by Lifeafterhummus Community Benefit Society at different venues in Camden including Somers Town Community Association and Maiden Lane Community Centre. They interviewed participants on the difficulties, if any, they face in buying, cooking and eating healthy food, including culturally appropriate food. At the classes they spoke to people from a wide range of backgrounds. People interviewed included homeless men, Bangladeshi and Somali women and people on low incomes.

Barriers to eating healthily included:

Time: people on low incomes work long hours and don’t have a lot of time to shop and cook

Accessibility: less healthy food is more accessible – grabbing a sandwich or some fried chicken is easy to do. 

Cost: only a few people mentioned cost as the main barrier to healthy eating. Some reported that their preferred food (e.g. fish from Bangladesh) was more expensive. However, a small number reported intermittent reliance on food banks, even though they were working. •

Finding culturally appropriate or preferred food (e.g halal meat, vegan options): was not a barrier for most, although some people remarked that it is easy to find in London; the exception was for some of the homeless people  interviewed for whom choice was more limited.

Know-how: several people said they lacked the knowledge of how to cook (hence their attendance at a cooking class).

What would help them eat healthily:

Advice from professionals: Most people wanted health professionals to offer more support in helping them to eat healthily, including for doctors to be more knowledgeable on nutrition so that they can advise patients who need help losing weight. 

Healthy eating culture in public services: Some mentioned hospitals, they said that hospitals should offer better food and specialist menus like vegan. Beyond the health sphere, ideas included educating school children on healthy eating as a way to foster good habits for later in life. Homeless men mentioned a lack of healthy choices in some hostels. 

Community support: People were enthusiastic about the help from the cooking class. The benefit of community provision like this went beyond teaching new recipes. Combining learning with a social opportunity created a sense of community. It motivated people to make the time for cooking, and made it easier for them to build healthy food into their diet.