WeightWatchers Helps Newcastle Become A Healthier City

April 2018: As part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s #BritainsFatFight, Weight Watchers supported the ‘Newcastle Can’ initiative in a bid to help the city get healthier and lose weight.

Weight Watchers coaches across Newcastle encouraged their members and people of the city to participate Newcastle Can, encouraging them to get healthy and by added their weight-loss to the city-wide tracker. To date, the city has lost just over 80,000lbs. Working with the council and other supporters, the Weight Watchers community has been a driving factor for the success of the citywide initiative.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall comments, "It has been brilliant to hear how Newcastle Can has been an inspiration and driving force for the local community to encourage healthier lifestyles across Newcastle. Having the support of local groups engaging their members in our citywide project and encouraging more people to get involved has been hugely helpful. Weight Watchers have been among these groups, with their coaches driving local support and engaging their members across the city.”

Chris Stirk, SVP and General Manager at Weight Watchers UK said, "Weight Watchers has been proud to support the 'Newcastle Can' initiative and be an integral part of this community driven effort to inspire healthy habits for real life. Weight Watchers’ coaches and members have felt encouraged by the city-wide project. Knowing that their success is contributing to the overall health and wellbeing of the city has been fantastic motivation for the community. This is a great example of a community finding new ways to tackle the obesity crisis together and also shows what we can achieve when health is made a priority. It would be great to see these tactics rolled out across the country.”

The 'Newcastle Can' initiative is designed to bring the community together to support each other with the goal of being healthy, a journey that can be very daunting when attempted alone. Support from health and well-being groups such as Weight Watchers has proved invaluable as this social experiment has reinforced just how hard it can be to lose weight on your own, while embracing change and a new healthy lifestyle.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will be presenting a new three-part series, beginning this Wednesday 25th April on BBC1, confronting the UK’s obesity crisis and following the journey of Newcastle Can.

For more information, please contact April Denver adenver@weight-watchers.co.uk