Excellence in Media Relations

Summary of work

One in ten people aged over 65 in the UK is malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. Malnutrition in older people is associated with significant health and quality of life impacts as well as being a burden on our health and social care system.

M&F Health, working for the charity BAPEN and the Malnutrition Task Force, created the first ever UK Malnutrition Awareness Week in October 2018, to raise public awareness of this problem. The goals were to help people understand the risk, spot the warning signs, and to understand where to get help and information.

The campaign was designed to tackle the misbalance in media reporting of obesity versus malnutrition, by exposing dangerous myths and misconceptions that persist about weight loss in later life. A bold call to action to ‘let them eat cake’ commanded the media agenda and ensured that important health information was seen by millions of potentially vulnerable older people.

The campaign had proven results with more people than expected visiting BAPEN’s self-screening tool, discovering their risk status and receiving the appropriate advice.

Judges' comments

The UK Malnutrition Awareness Week campaign won because it really demonstrated a very strong public health outcome. The messaging was very bold and really stood out and if scaled up it hints at the way that healthcare communications could play a really significant role in the sustainability of adult social care.