£14m Lotto cash to teach Londoners how to be happier

Tens of thousands of people will be shown how to improve "wellbeing" by growing vegetables in window boxes, becoming more optimistic and taking more exercise.

They will also create "happiness maps" showing the green spaces and leisure activities in their area.

The most deprived parts of the city will be given help with nutrition, exercise, and mental health as part of two city-wide projects to improve people's mental and physical health.

"Well London", the main strategy, received almost £10million from the Big Lottery Fund. It will specifically target almost 80,000 of the city's most deprived residents, including children, in 20 boroughs over five years.

A second project, run by the charitable Peabody Trust, gets almost £5million and will focus on food and exercise.

London has some of the worst public-health problems in the country, with one in five deaths caused by smoking in areas including Tower Hamlets, Islington, Greenwich and Southwark.

Life expectancy falls by seven years between Westminster and Canning Town, and one in four children in parts of north London is obese. Mental health problems are also high.

The London Health Commission, a link organisation set up by Mayor Ken Livingstone, will try to tackle this by sending teams into communities across the city to ask them how they want to improve.

Health officials want the drive to focus on happiness as much as physical wellbeing.

The Well London strategy will be overseen by the Commission but delivered by seven organisations including the Central YMCA for exercise-Sustainability Exchange for healthy eating, Arts Council for culture, Groundwork for the environment and the South London and Maudsley NHS trust for mental health.

Jennette Arnold, chairwoman of the Commission, said: "I'm really excited that Well London has been awarded this big grant. It gives us a fantastic opportunity to deliver real, long-term change for people living in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country."

The Peabody Trust project will show residents of high-rise flats across the city how to grow food. Nutrition workers will also try to convince single men to eat fewer takeaways.

Steve Howlett, chief executive of the Peabody Trust, said: "This is fantastic news. It means that over 40,000 people living in the capital's most deprived communities will have access to a whole range of enjoyable and educational projects."