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Make Healthy Normal (NSW)

“Make healthy normal”

NSW Ministry of Health obesity prevention mass media campaign (2015-2018) that tried to make healthy eating and activity seem normal, targeting men and parents in phase 2.

Years
2015–2018
Country
Australia
Topic
NutritionPhysical activity
Asks people to
Start
Strategy
Social norms
Channel
Social (organic)Social (paid)TVWebsite
Audience
MenParents
Phase 2 (2017-18): men aged 18-54 and parents of children aged 5-12.

Evidence

ObservationalMixed

Three cross-sectional surveys (n=4,352 men) and six focus groups in phase 2: reasonable prompted recognition but low unprompted recall, and no consistent positive shifts in attitudes or behavior (Kite 2020). Phase 1 cohort (n=939, three waves over 12 months; Kite 2018): knowledge of activity guidelines and of obesity harms rose, but self-efficacy and intentions to be more active or cut soft drinks fell.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • NSW Ministry of Health Foreign government, funder

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Kite J, Thomas M, Grunseit AC et al. Results of a mixed methods evaluation of the Make Healthy Normal campaign. Health Educ Res 2020;35(5):418-36 evaluation · 2020 · DOI 10.1093/her/cyaa022 · PMID 32808046
  2. Kite J et al. Impact of the Make Healthy Normal mass media campaign (Phase 1) on knowledge, attitudes and behaviours: a cohort study. Aust N Z J Public Health 2018 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.1111/1753-6405.12779 · PMID 29644787
  3. Kite J et al. From awareness to behaviour: Testing a hierarchy of effects model on the Australian Make Healthy Normal campaign using mediation analysis. Prev Med Rep 2018 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.09.003 · PMID 30258762

Research notes

Created 2026-10-22 by OpenAlex literature mining (openalex-deep pass); evidence level, outcome and findings are paraphrased from the evaluation abstracts, full texts not read. No credits: no page naming an agency was checked. Sponsor from secondary knowledge (campaign of the NSW Office of Preventive Health); confirm. A Facebook analytics paper (Kite 2018) also exists, not added. Evidence updated 2026-10-22: outcome null -> mixed. This record covers both phases (2015-2018); the phase 1 cohort found knowledge gains with falling intentions, phase 2 surveys found no consistent shifts.

Record cases/nsw-make-healthy-normal.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign