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The study aimed to evaluate the BBC's 'Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit' campaign's success in achieving public awareness of the need for obesity prevention, and putting over its message of healthy eating and increased physical activity. Demographic factors associated with awareness of the campaign were assessed. Data were collected from a national representative British sample as part of the ONS Omnibus survey in March 1999. Questions included weight and height, recognition of the campaign name, recall of the content of the campaign, and participation in the campaign registration scheme. More than half of the respondents had heard of the campaign and 30% recalled the healthy lifestyle messages, although fewer than 1% registered to participate in the scheme. Awareness of the campaign was high in all socio-economic groups, but memory for the healthy lifestyle message was significantly poorer in those with lower levels of education and from ethnic minority groups. Disappointingly, awareness was also no higher in overweight than normal weight respondents. The results strongly support the effectiveness of the campaign in publicizing the issue of increasing prevalence of obesity and the need for lifestyle change, but suggest that different approaches might be needed to maximize participation from groups most in need of lifestyle change.

Who I am as a working-class black African woman cannot be disconnected from how I work. It shapes my lens with regard to power, difference and liberation. It is not surprising that I have been drawn to social justice approaches to psychological intervention, such as Narrative Therapy, Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), social constructionist systemic therapy and liberation psychology. These practices involve taking up the cause of the oppressed in ways that respect them as agents of their own liberation. In this article, I describe what I term 'solidarity practice' with young people and their families as a counter force resisting the increasingly blaming and individualising discourse of mainstream psychology, psychiatry and social policy.

Trauma can be viewed through the lens of oppression, and a radical systemic approach in groups is an example of this view in practice. Group‐work in an inner‐city secondary school, with twelve 13–14 year‐olds the school was concerned about, and eleven 12–15 year‐olds at risk of exclusion, drew on systemic, narrative and critical consciousness ideas. This approach enabled the young people to link what they understood about trauma and oppression (consciousness) with what they wanted to do about it (action). An independent qualitative evaluation suggested that participants valued being listened to, the improvement in their confidence and behaviour and the opportunity to be change‐makers. Recommendations were made by the participants about future groups and by the participants and group facilitators about whole‐school approaches to wellbeing based on challenging oppression.Practitioner points How we name experience (consciousness) shapes what we deem appropriate in response (action) Levels of consciousness reflect how problems are named, explained and addressed; levels of action range from oppressive to transformative A radical systemic approach to trauma involves joining with the marginalised, naming oppression and collective social action This involves the body as embodied consciousness and as embedded in social, cultural and political contexts In schools, clinicians direct their intervention at the entire system based on the views of the most marginalised pupils

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