About three weeks ago, there was a curious story about how the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Royal Foundation had trademarked the name HEADFIT in the UK. The intention was to develop a mental-health app for veterans and soldiers so they could do mental-health exercises and seek advice all in one app, specialized for them. If that sounded like more of a “Prince Harry thing,” that’s because it was. He seemingly launched Headfit last year, when it was still in the planning stages. But the Cambridges trademarked it – did they “get” it in the divorce or what? Apparently, they’re all going to work on it together… maybe. Prince Harry did a video for Headfit and the Independent says Headfit is still being launched through Heads Together/The Royal Foundation.
The Duke of Sussex has launched a new mental fitness tool aimed at helping military personnel cope with mental health problems. Prince Harry, who served in the army for 10 years, appears in a video for HeadFit – a new organisation that has been designed to offer round-the-clock access to self-help tools which can help people manage the stresses of everyday life and enhance their mood. In the video, the Queen’s grandson, who is now living in Los Angeles after quitting as a working royal, urges members of the armed forces to train their “mind and body as one”.
The project, led by Harry, has been three years in the making. It was due to be unveiled in June but the launch has been brought forward to help service personnel who may be dealing with new challenges during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Today, when we talk about fitness, we don’t just mean how fast you can run or how much weight you can carry,” Harry says in the clip. “This is about mental fitness, strength and resilience, not just while wearing a uniform, but for the rest of your life. If you want to be truly fit, strong and healthy, you need to train your mind and body as one. Some people run, others swim, cycle or lift weights in order to be physically fit. But what do you do to stay mentally fit? Think about what you can do to unlock your potential, and to perform at the highest level.”
HeadFIT has been developed in partnership with The Royal Foundation’s Heads Together campaign, the Ministry of Defence and King’s College London, with clinical advice from psychologist Dr Vanessa Moulton.
You can see the Headfit site here. They put the site together pretty well, considering they thought they were going to do the big launch in June and not April. I’m including the video below… I’m sure they had professional psychologists working on how this video should sound welcoming and how it should be inviting and nonjudgmental. But the peppy music combined with Harry’s tone makes this sound very much like Harry’s trying to sell us all timeshares in Costa Rica. It’s nice though, and it’s a good thing. I wonder… if the tone around this will shift now that Harry’s face is attached, and it’s not just the rumor that William and Kate “took” one of Harry’s things.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
This is a great initiative and it seems like it was well planned from the start, so obviously Harry was the one behind it the whole time.
It sounds like it was started with Heads Together (and presumably some foundation funding?) it stayed there.
Harry do put in the work.
For a guy that the BM was calling dumb and fragile he seems to get things done, sure he have help, but someone has to come up with the ideas.
All the projects at the Royal Foundation seems to have Harry footprints all over them.
I wonder if the Royal Foundation trademarked it because once the Sussex Royal foundation was no more, that trademark was done and it was vulnerable, so it was actually more of a partnership?
I hope that’s why. Because before it looked like the Cambridges were “stealing” it. I know they (probably) weren’t but the… oh what’s the favourite word some people like to use with the Sussexes? /optics/ weren’t great
Go Harry go. He’s a great person to counter the unhealthy masculinity so prevalent in the military.
This looks like a great program and good on Harry for keeping it moving for over 3 years and not giving up. I am going to give the Cambridges the benefit of the doubt on this and say they are actually helping get this program moving since the Sussexes haven’t been able to launch their platform yet. This way they were able to launch the program early so the soldiers can get the support they need. Not going to shade them for this. That said, Harry has carved out areas where his passions are and has worked hard to make positive change. Wills and Kate have passions (men’s health and early childhood) but can’t seem to stick with anything long enough to do anything of substance.
This seems to have been well-received by organisations representing the initiative’s target groups. So well done to all concerned.
It’s clever to frame it as part of your overall fitness, and giving people choices as to what to focus on encourages helpful self awareness and creates a feeling of being in control. Task-oriented, goal-driven – this will really suit the typical Armed Forces personnel.
I know some early studies showed that Veterans, here in the US anyway, do better with telecounseling and I think an app really fits in well too. I haven’t read the studies, not even the abstracts, so I don’t know why, but I think a lot of people will come out of quarantine with preferences for remote and techy ways to take care of their mental health. In my opinion, great, maybe it can be more accessible than often thought of to engage.
Yeah, it feels like the Cambridges and their failing foundation are nothing without Harry, regardless of the massive amounts of embiggening they get. There’s absolutely nothing done under that umbrella that wasn’t started by Harry, SMH. And it’s also rumored that Heads Together IS Harry’s baby too, the Cambridges just piggybacked on it due to lack of any accomplishments of their own. Since the Sussexes left the Foundation early 2018, the Cambridges and the Royal Foundation have struggled unsuccessfully to gain footing on something and anything. Even the struggle survey went absolutely nowhere. Like, this is the first significant project launched since January 2018 and it’s still Harry’s project. Yeah, the Cambridges are total losers no matter how much embiggening they get.
I love how focused Harry is on mental health and well being. I hate that the press are using his mental health against him because he took his family out of a toxic environment. It shows how strong he is mentally and how serious he takes it. Good for Harry! He practices what he preaches (unlike other royals)
Yup, and the ironic thing about it is that the tabloid press are so ignorant, because they actually just go to show the stigma there still is about mental health, and how important it is for people like Harry and Meghan to address it and speak openly about it.
I’m holding back on giving the Cambridges any kudos on that because they participated in the campaign that ridiculed Harry and Meghan being open and vulnerable to the public about their mental health.
The Cambridges deserve absolutely no praise or anything for this project. The only thing they did was to trademark it as their own. I personally believe they were sort of counting on that everyone would forget Harry’s association with it so they could go ahead and claim it as their own creation. The subsequent stories that followed, with heavy implications that the two-good-for-nothings were attempting to steal Harry’s project, caused William to pause. The Cambridges have nothing to show for all their entire privileged lives, absolutely nothing, well unless you count massive expenses of taxpayer money. We still waiting on the struggle survey outcomes and my guess is we got a very long to wait.
When William let the media know he thought Harry was fragile for talking about his mental health, that was the end of all his credibility on that issue. Shaming someone for talking about mental health is the exact opposite of what people should be doing.
And if the media put out false words, William never made any efforts to correct that story. He certainly can send human rights letters about the Rose story but has no problem with stories where he’s called his brother fragile and is a hypocrite to the core on an issue he supposedly cares about.
I’m glad they released it as harry’s initiative after the cambridges plotted to take all praise by tradmarking it. The embiggening campaign wasnt enough and they are still plotting to take harry’s work😤 I mean the MoD couldve taken over and trademarked it but it seems like they wanted to do what they did with Meghan’s cookbook; to redirect the resources via the foundation to personal expenses.
I really love this, I think when we talk about men most of it is geared towards being physically strong, but without the mental part breeds toxic masculinity. It’s so important to have a strong mind, and who better than Harry to lead this after what the press has put him through, he has the mental streghth of Buddha. I honestly am in awe how he does it, it takes a lot of strength to ignore the world. I’m sure we’ve all been a part of or know someone in a toxic environment, whether it be family or school or work environment, some have even commited suicide because of it…imagine that bullying on a world scale, that’s what this man has/is going through, your intimate conversations with closest personal friends put out in the open for all the world to sneer at and mock, that’s what the one he loves has been put through. Much needed initiative.
+ 1
The divorce continues. I expect the Sussexes to continue to be active, involved, productive, welcomed and appreciated in a myriad of ways. I expect the Cambridges to flounder and sulk and be busy being non productive. I think while both are wounded only one couple will be sincerely happy going forward and damn, you reap what you sow!