1 | 062/0026 | Healthy Towns: Evaluation of the Healthy Community Challenge Fund | | NIHR (non-ODA) | Research | Complete | Policy Research Programme | Researcher Led | Policy Research Programme | £920,717 | 1 August 2009 | 30 September 2014 | Obesity is related to a range of chronic health conditions including heart disease, type II diabetes, osteoarthritis and some cancers. In England obesity levels are rising rapidly in both adults and children and but interventions aimed at reducing obesity have had limited impact. Government policy documents, particularly the Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives strategy and the Foresight Report Tackling Obesities: Future Choices have highlighted the need to tackle the increasingly ‘obesogenic’ nature of modern society. Obesogenic environments are those which encourage excessive energy intake and discourage energy expenditure, by making opportunities for healthy eating and regular physical activity more difficult. Understanding how the environments in which we live, work and play have an impact on obesity is thus becoming an important element of public health policy.The Healthy Community Challenge Fund (HCCF) is a response to this challenge. The HCCF has been established to pilot, test and e | BackgroundReducing obesity prevalence is emerging as a key public health challenge in the UK and internationally. Recent major government reports have highlighted that tackling the ‘obesogenic’ environment, an environment that encourages excessive individual energy intake and discourages energy expenditure, may be important in improving diet quality and increasing physical activity levels in the UK. In response, the Department of Health and Cross-Government Obesity Unit has initiated the Health Community Challenge Fund (HCCF), a key element of the Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives strategy. The HCCF has been established to pilot, test and evaluate a series of social and environmental interventions aimed at tackling the ‘obesogenic’ environment in nine ‘Healthy Towns’ across England.AimsThe overall aim of the project is to generate robust evidence on the implementation and impact of an area-based approach to tackling the 'obesogenic' environment in England. The project seeks to answer two q | Academic | London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine | WC1E 7HT | 51.521 | -0.131 | Professor Steven Cummins | 0000-0002-3957-4357 | Chief Investigator | Cancer and neoplasms/Oral and Gastrointestinal/Cardiovascular/Metabolic and Endocrine/Stroke | 3. Prevention of Disease and Conditions, and Promotion of Well-Being | 3.1 Primary prevention interventions to modify behaviours or promote well-being | Obesity/Social Care | Award does not have an ODA Downstream Partner |