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Using ITV’s ability to deliver entertaining programming to mass audiences, we threw our weight behind the UK Government’s Change4Life campaign to help the nation “eat well, move more and live longer”.

Change4Life brings government, businesses, community groups, health workers, and teachers together to promote healthy living and fight the rise of obesity in Britain.

As a founding member of the Advertising Association’s Business4Life coalition, ITV supported Change4Life with an on-screen and online campaign called ‘The Feelgood Factor’. We are proud to be involved, and in 2009 gave support worth £10 million to the initiative, comprised of network and regional programming, promotional air time, online support and press coverage.

Read more about the campaign at http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/ and www.business4life.co.uk .

The Feelgood Factor on air

A nationwide initiative, The Feelgood Factor encouraged the public to join some of ITV’s biggest stars in shaping up for a healthier year.

Starting in January, we aired three special shows and launched a dedicated website (www.itv.com/feelgoodfactor) that encouraged viewers to make positive changes towards a healthier lifestyle for themselves and their families. Presented by Eamonn Holmes and Myleene Klass, the programmes featured a host of ITV favourites demonstrating healthy behaviour. For example:

• Coronation Street stars Antony Cotton, Katherine Kelly and Michelle Keegan cooked up a healthy hotpot in the Rovers Return and a leaner fry-up in Roy’s Rolls, with the help of celebrity chef Brian Turner
• The cast of Emmerdale proved that running can be fun, as they trained a pub darts team to attempt a half marathon.

Eamonn Holmes also fronted The Feelgood Factor’s “Pound for Pound” initiative, inviting viewers over the age of 18 to join him in losing weight and raising money for charity at the same time. For each pound in weight participants pledged to lose, their friends and family pledged a pound in cash or more for their chosen charity. Viewers followed the progress of Eamonn and others through the website, follow-up shows in February and March, and weekly updates on This Morning. They could also use the time frame to track their own weight loss. More than 10,000 people signed up for the initiative online, and pledged to raise over £400,000 for charity by losing more than 140,000 lbs of weight.

ITV Feelgood Factor Award

Helping people get fit was just one part of The Feelgood Factor. We also wanted the initiative to celebrate the achievements of ordinary people who do extraordinary things to help others lead healthier lives.

In June 2009, we teamed up with the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards to launch a nationwide search for healthy living role models. Through ITV regional news programmes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we invited viewers to nominate outstanding individuals – including sports teachers, medical professionals and social workers – for the ITV Feelgood Factor Award.

From hundreds of nominations, our regional news teams each selected a winner (see below). We invited the ten regional finalists to London, to visit 10 Downing Street where they met the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, Health Secretary Andy Burnham and Culture Media and Sport Secretary Ben Bradshaw, and attend the star-studded awards show which we screened on ITV1.

There could only be one winner, and the Pride of Britain jury chose Andy Dalby-Welsh. Andy, from Hove in our Meridian region, lost most of his eyesight ten years ago because of a genetic condition. Now aged 30, he is committed to getting visually impaired young people involved in sport. The judges picked Andy as winner because of the dramatic difference he makes to children’s lives, by giving them cricket coaching and organising annual holidays for them. Presenting the award, Philip Schofield and Myleene Klass described Andy’s determination as “inspiring”.

ITV Feelgood Factor Award: Regional winners

National ITV Feelgood Factor Award winner Andy Dalby-Welsh faced stiff competition from the other nine regional finalists:

Anglia - Warner Duff, founder of Ipswich Town Disabled Football Club who strives to prove that disability, including his own back injuries, shouldn’t get in the way of playing sport

Central - Joe Sarginson, a sports teacher who sends 20,000 footballs to Africa every year through his charity, Balls to Poverty

Granada - Kathryn Miller, who runs a Bolton riding school for disabled children

London - Andrew Amers-Morrison, who teaches Brazilian football skills to children from west London council estates under his Samba Street Soccer scheme

Ulster - Deborah Maguire, coach of the junior cheerleading squad for the Belfast Giants ice hockey team, who brings children aged 5-15 together to keep fit and have fun

Tyne Tees/Border - Geraldine Williams, a volunteer netball coach who has inspired 130 people from a deprived area of Middlesbrough to play netball

Wales - Neil Hapgood, who has helped nearly 2,500 people to experience the outdoors in his role as Duke of Edinburgh Award officer

Westcountry - Pete Andrews, a sports coach who teaches disabled adults how to live healthier, happier lives – including one man who has now became an England Paralympic international

Yorkshire - Kath Sharman, who lost 10 stone in weight and uses her experience to inspire young people to get fit through her own nutrition and exercise group