A Teddington-based GP and Medical Educator, who piloted a five-week food and nutrition programme back in April 2025, has been awarded a National Lottery bid for funding six more five-week programmes over the next two years.

Vineet Thapar's Eating for Better Health (EBH) programme runs at St Mary's University in Twickenham and is a platform to promote a greater awareness and understanding of what current science tells us about healthy eating.

EBH uses a range of methods that include workshops and presentations. The focus of the educational material is to reduce the overall consumption of foods that are high in salt, sugar and fat (HSSF).

In addition, there is an emphasis on increasing the consumption of whole foods and reducing the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

Speaking about the aims of the programme, EBH states: "Using the changes in our understanding of food science to improve the lifestyle of a targeted group of clients. Methods used include pre and post intervention surveys on lifestyle.

"There will be workshops covering the basic areas of food groups as well as hands on cooking simple dishes in a nutrition laboratory"

Any person wanting to join the courses can either self refer or be referred by an allied professional (e.g. GP, nurse, social prescriber or weight management programme) by filling a form available on the EBH website here.

EBH's target audience includes any adult aged 18 and above who is considered to fall into the following groups:

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• Weight management
• Pre-diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes
• Mental health (not acutely ill)
• Adults who live alone e.g. young adults, widow/widowers
• Carers
• Single parents
• Any person wanting to improve their understanding of healthy eating

EBH's next courses will begin in April 2026 with all sessions being held on Thursdays from 5pm – 7.30pm and you can find out the session dates here.

All sessions will be held at The Nutrition Lab that has up to six to eight stations, which have a cooker and worktop facilities as well as a breakout area for teaching.

This will allow 12 - 14 persons to be recruited for each cohort. The nutrition lab is well served with public transport links including the buses 33, and local rail stations Strawberry Hill and Teddington. There is no parking on site but there are nearby roads, with some having parking restrictions. 

Speaking about the award funding, Thapar told Nub News: "This has been a long journey for us, and we are thrilled to receive this funding."

You can read the full report of the EBH pilot programme here.