LiveLighter® is a long running healthy lifestyle promotion and education program, overarched by a mass media campaign, and launched in Western Australia (WA) in 2012. The program targets adults aged 25 to 64 years and has been delivered by the Heart Foundation and Cancer Council WA and is funded by the WA Department of Health. Due to the impact of body weight, diet and physical inactivity on cancer risk, cancer societies are well placed to deliver lifestyle programs.

The LiveLighter® program aims to contribute to the WA Department of Health’s efforts to halt and reverse the increasing trends of adult overweight and obesity in WA. It also aims to increase the prevalence of WA adults consuming a diet in line with the national dietary guidelines, as well as the prevalence of adults meeting the national physical activity and sedentary behaviour guidelines.

LiveLighter® centres on a TV-led campaign, aired state-wide, and is supported by a website offering healthy recipes, blog posts and other tools. Digital marketing campaigns and social media platforms provide additional opportunities to meet program aims during non-TV campaign periods.

The LiveLighter® program was developed based on rigorous formative research and is informed by a behavioural model which incorporates elements of the theories of Diffusion of Innovations, the Health Belief Model and Social Cognitive Theory.

To evaluate the campaign component of the LiveLighter® program, a baseline survey was conducted prior to the campaign’s commencement, and each campaign wave is evaluated using a cross-sectional or cohort study. This evaluation design allows the campaign’s impact to be tracked over time. Each evaluation assesses the impact of the LiveLighter® campaign on WA adults’ knowledge, intentions and behaviours around healthy eating and body weight.

Since 2012, there have been significant increases in the proportion of WA adults reporting knowledge of excess body weight as a risk factor for cancer, intending to eat more fruit and vegetables and drink less sugar sweetened beverages in the next seven days (after being surveyed). There has also been an increase in the proportion of WA adults who reported meeting daily vegetable intake guidelines, and a decrease in the reported consumption of sugary drinks.

The success of the LiveLighter® program is due to several factors; creation of the program was based on rigorous formative research, each new campaign is based on formative research, a strong commitment to ongoing evaluation, and long-term funding by the WA Government through the WA Department of Health. These elements should be prioritised in any mass media campaign aiming to achieve a similar goal to the LiveLighter®.