A GP who features on a BBC documentary where he moves in with a family to make their lifestyles healthier says little changes can make a huge difference to people's lives.

The three-part series, Doctor in the House, documents a six week period where Dr Rangan Chatterjee moves into the house of a family and listens to their health problems and assesses their lifestyles.

The first episode saw Dr Chatterjee liaise with Priti and Sandeep in their North London home.

Priti presented menopausal symptoms and Sandeep is living with Type 2 Diabetes.

The programme captures the journey of the family with the challenge of making long term changes to their lifestyle in a bid to better their health.

Dr Rangan spoke to Asian Image about his impetus for appearing on the show. “The programme was a natural fit for me.

“My frustration in the surgery comes from not being able to spend enough time with the patient.

“That human connection with the patient is critical.

“With the show, I was able to take my time talking to each family, observing them. It gave me more empathy which meant they were more prone to listening to me.

“I never want to lecture a patient. I want to educate them and hopefully inspire them.

“The prime goal for doing this programme was to help the families on the show. And in turn, if I can help the public, that is wonderful.

“Incidentally, the day after the first episode aired, there was a huge influx of people wanting to be patients at the surgery where I work!”

As Dr Chatterjee joins the family in their home, he soon brings in a strict diet plan discarding many of the food products in the kitchen as well as enforcing an easy to implement exercise regime which simply entails walking.

Dr Chatterjee continued, “An important thing to note is that you can’t control the environment outside your home. There is temptation everywhere and will power will only get you so far.

“If you’re serious about change, you need to control the environment in your house. If you have chocolate biscuits in your house, at some stage, after a long day at work or a stressful day with the kids, you’re going to crumble and devour that packet.

“The most rewarding thing for me was that Sandeep and Priti have since maintained those long term strategies that we discussed.

“I don’t want any short term gimmicks.

“I want people to be in control of their disease or illness-in Saneep’s case, to be in control of his Type 2 Diabetes.

“If you make 3 or 4 small changes, in isolation they may have a limited effect. But together they are very profound.

“For example, with Priti, she changed her diet, she had a goal to take 10,000 steps a day in order to lose weight as well as meditating to manage her stress.

“It began as 4000 steps a day and she gradually increased it to 10,0000.

“They are relatively small changes yet the results are powerful.

“I am so passionate about public health. Nutrition and lifestyle are the most powerful medicines we have.”

Episode two airs tonight at 9pm on BBC 1. If you want any tips or keep updated you can tweet Chatterjee on @drchatterjeeuk