Today marks the beginning of Healthy Eating Week 2023, with this year’s focus on making food #ForEveryone in response to the ongoing cost of living crisis. The may have made maintaining a healthy diet more difficult for some – and we’d encourage anyone struggling financially to give our financial wellbeing guide a download to see some of the help, support and options available to you.

A month or so back, colleagues told us that weight loss through diet and exercise was one of the areas they wanted more support in from Gateshead Health – meaning this topic will be a priority for us throughout this year.

This year marks Healthy Eating Week’s 10th anniversary, with the occasion ultimately aiming to raise awareness around the importance of healthy eating for all. That being said, we know that for some, food can be a difficult topic – and we’d advise anyone who struggles in this regard to consider checking our support page.

Below you can find some of the further support, information and resources available to you in regards to healthy eating, – both from ourselves and other organisations, as well as info on how else we’re marking the occasion.

Events:

  • Thursday 15th June – Healthy Eating Week Stall featuring Slimming World: Join us in The Hub between 12:00pm – 2:00pm, where we’ll be joined by both representatives of our Dietetics and Nutrition teams, as well as representatives of Slimming World who can share more information about our partnership with them and how you can access discounted membership rates.
  • Friday 16th June – Healthy Eating Week Stall featuring Slimming World: Join us at The Park Deli (Bensham Hospital) between 12:00pm – 2:00pm where we’ll again be joined by both representatives of our Dietetics and Nutrition teams, as well as representatives of Slimming World who can share more information about our partnership with them and how you can access discounted membership rates.

Special Menu:

To mark the occasion, our wonderful catering team will be dedicating their daily chef’s special to a healthier option each day. You can see a daily menu below – although colleagues are also reminded that a free provision of a soup and sandwich will again be made available throughout industrial action from our catering facilities next week, between Wednesday 14th June – Friday 16th June.

  • Monday: Spicy Mexican pockets served with salsa dip and mixed salad
  • Tuesday: Chicken skewers with a chickpea salad
  • Wednesday: Ginger chicken udon noodles
  • Thursday: Vegetable carvery
  • Friday: Vegetable frittata served with mixed salad slaw

Reading:

Our fantastic Library team has kindly moved to help us celebrate the occasion by providing us with some relevant reads which we’ll be hosting on the bookshelves in our Listening Space throughout the week. Just pop by to give them a browse!

Recipes:

  • One way to mark the occasion suitably would be to make a healthy meal – you might even want to consider making healthy treats to share with colleagues. If you’re stuck for ideas, you can download recipes from The Body Coach, Joe Wickes, who shares 18 budget-friendly recipes that can be made for under £1 per serving.
  • Alternatively, visit our very own Balance Cookbook, full of staff-submitted recipes, many of which are vegan-friendly!
  • Speaking of staff-submitted recipes, Catriona Grant, an F2 in the Critical Care team has kindly shared a planetary health cookbook and month-long meal plan, created as part of previous university studies. Within, you’ll be able to find dozens of low carbon recipes which can help you maintain a diet which is good for yourself and the planet.

Apps:

There are a number of tools available to you free of charge that can help you build healthier eating habits. The Better Health Food Scanner app helps you to find healthier swaps for the entire family by simply scanning a product barcode. Elsewhere, MyFitnessPal can act as a handy tool for tracking calorie consumption and other information like macros, giving you a better ability to measure and track what you’re putting into your system.

More:

For further support and resources around healthy eating, visit and keep checking back on our dedicated healthy eating page which we’re looking to build out further over the weeks and months ahead. Here, you can already find out more about the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme and our partnership with local Slimming World groups!