Fuel your body: the art of eating and hydrating for optimal health

Healthwatch Southwark worked with the Community Health Ambassadors and Community Southwark to evaluate a project to improve healthy eating. Fuel Your Body is a project to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes in Southwark and beyond, which is designed for and led by the community. The project blends practical lessons of nutrition, hydration, and holistic health, with hands-on cooking sessions.

 Residents consistently asked for nutritional support, but many felt excluded by mainstream health advice. They needed a programme that respected their cultural foods, taught easy to replicate recipes, and fitted within tight household budgets. To explore this gap, they delivered a feedback and two taster sessions at South London Mission, alongside their weekly pantry service. The feedback session collected nine questionnaire responses. The participants were very interested, but also sceptical: “healthy food,” they thought, usually means ‘bland’, or ‘unfamiliar’.

The first and second taster session addressed these concerns with culturally familiar, nutritious nibbles: homemade energy balls, pies, quesadillas, salads and hibiscus juice (a popular drink among African and Caribbean families). This transformed engagement, as participants saw and tasted that healthy meals could be flavourful, satisfying, and culturally aligned.  This proved that cultural grounding and flavour are essential for building trust and participation. In all, we collected feedback from 40 participants. 

The pilot session was originally capped at 12 people, but was oversubscribed, with 20 participants signing up. Their feedback confirmed the value of culturally relevant recipes, practical demonstrations, and a supportive learning environment that encouraged sharing, and peer feedback.

 This report outlines findings from the initial feedback session, taster sessions, and pilot phase. It also outlines the program’s viability to scale into a structured, multi-session programme delivered across schools and community settings, in alignment with Southwark Council’s Vision 2030, NHS prevention 4 priorities, the Neighbourhood Health approach, and the Core20PLUS5 framework.