I'm delighted to be writing to you today for two reasons. Firstly, as always, I can't wait to tell you about our latest research and the new resources we've been creating to help people live healthier lives. And, secondly, it's great to be writing to you on World Kindness Day. The importance of kindness and compassion is becoming increasingly well recognised by health literature and at Slimming World we know that this approach is absolutely the key to helping people who struggle with their weight to build their self-esteem and find the confidence and strength to achieve their goals. 

To celebrate World Kindness Day why not watch our video where people describe how the kindness of their Slimming World group helped them to lose weight.

Slimming World's nutrition and research team presented a series of posters at the first annual Public Health England conference in September.

The research included initial results from:

Slimming World has been working with the specialist group from the British Dietetic Association (BDA), Dietitians in Obesity Management (DOM UK), and the Children's Food Campaign to encourage supermarkets to remove unhealthy food from supermarket checkouts. The 'Junk Free Checkouts' campaign was launched after a survey of Slimming World members showed that eight out of 10 shoppers were unhappy with the sale of sugary or high calorie food and drink items at checkouts. A new Junk Free Checkouts website has now been created to enable shoppers to show their support for the campaign and Public Health Minister, Jane Ellison, has publicly backed the issue.

The results of a study of more than 550 Slimming World members with type 2 diabetes were presented at the Nutrition and Health Live conference earlier this month. The study showed that people with type 2 diabetes who attend Slimming World lose weight successfully, have improved glycaemic control, are able to reduce medication and describe improvements in quality of life.

A new website resource that supports students to manage their weight in a healthy way has been developed by Slimming World. The resource includes step-by-step recipes for student-friendly meals like chips and ketchup, chicken and potato curry and tomato and basil risotto, tips on shopping on a student budget and inspiring student case studies. The website can be found at www.slimmingworld.co.uk/student

Slimming World's work with The Royal College of Midwives to create an online resource to help women through every stage of their pregnancy was featured by the Daily Telegraph and many regional radio stations last month. The website, www.slimmingworld.co.uk/rcm was created to provide a reputable source of healthy lifestyle information for women about how to manage their weight before, during and after pregnancy, after the two organisations recognised that there are many confusing and conflicting messages.