What was WIN.?

The Healthy Weight Initiative for Nurses (WIN.) was a bold, ambitious project tackling a sensitive issue: raising awareness of obesity in the nursing profession and engaging nurses themselves in how to address this.

It made national headlines for its commissioned research finding that 1 in 4 nurses in England are obese.

We used innovative approaches to obtain insight into nurses’ attitudes and involve them in the co-design of interventions. WIN. has produced an important body of work that warrants following up by the partners, employers and other stakeholders, and has the potential to improve the health – and therefore the effectiveness – of health workers.

WIN. was a partnership between C3 Collaborating for Health (C3), London South Bank University (LSBU) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), with funding from the Burdett Trust, the RCN and the RCN Foundation. Its aim was to work with registered nurses in England who are obese to design interventions that will help nurses achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

The project had three phases:

1. Scoping, involving a review on interventions to address obesity in nurses, a prevalence study of obesity in nurses in England (which made national headlines in December 2017), and detailed design and piloting of data collection tools.
2. Insight, involving getting views from nurses on their attitudes to obesity and the barriers to losing weight in the workplace.
3. Co-production, involving workshops where nurses discussed and designed interventions.

This work is being carried on through other projects within C3’s nursing programme, including NURSING YOU.

Download the full report

To read more about WIN.’s achievements and findings, download the Healthy Weight Initiative for Nurses (WIN.) final report.

Download ‘A look at nurses’ access to food at work’ infographic.

Other WIN. publications:

Interested in our work with nurses? Read about NURSING YOU!