the cost of a new fruit and vegetable chiller cabinet.
A project co-ordinator will work with the stores to help them to maximise profits and minimise waste. The co-ordinator will also help retailers tie in with local initiatives such as nutrition training and cookery clubs.
Evaluation: Initial sales data show that sales of fruit and vegetables have
increased by between 30 - 300% in every development store so far. An executive evaluation report will be available from January 2009 on.
Contact Details:
Julia Ellis
Cross-Government Obesity Programme +44 20 7972 4383
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Cooking Your Way to is a programme to address health inequalities and improve healthy eating awareness via several ‘Grab 5!’ activities. These activities are run by club leaders for 7-11 year olds in 14 different primary schools in Ealing Borough.
Aim: This project aims to:
promote healthy eating by teaching practical ways to adapt familiar meals to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and reduce fat, sugar and salt intake,
deliver culturally sensitive healthy eating messages to hard to engage groups,
increase knowledge of the benefits of healthy cooking and eating to schools and community groups of all ages,
provide training and employment opportunities for members of the local community (Cookery Club Leaders), and to
improve social cohesion in the community and reduce isolation
Design: This programme has developed several community based food projects
to address health inequalities and improve healthy eating awareness. These activities include:
Cookery Clubs
Grab 5 workshops for children Grab 5 parents talks
Healthy eating assemblies Health Fairs
Healthy tuckshops
Grab 5 parents talk
Healthy eating displays and demonstrations in local businesses, at Ealing PCT health promotion events and in local pharmacies.
With these activities it also improves the knowledge of the target group of how food can affect health and helping people to make realistic improvements to their diet taking into account their potential barriers to change e.g. socio- economic factors, knowledge and skills.
Targeted Communities: This programme targets children and teenagers, groups
at high risk of obesity, CHD and diabetes, socially and economically deprived groups, and adult groups at risk of malnutrition e.g. young mothers, elderly people.
Evaluation: Grab 5 was evaluated as a research project through WelRen study:
‘Do physical activity and nutrition schemes work for children in Ealing’?
Cooking your way to Health, primary evaluation showed that clubs were effective and sustainable, thus the project funding has been extended through Choosing Health funding until March 2007.
Contact Details:
Melissa Arkinstall Ealing Primary Care Trust
[email protected] http://www.ealingpct.nhs.uk/
Cooking Your Way to Health
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The Snack Right campaign, led by the national ChaMPs Public Health Network, supports parents and carers of pre-school children living in deprived areas of Cheshire and Merseyside (North West of England) to replace at least one unhealthy snack a day in their child’s diet with a healthy one.
Aim: The goal of this initiative is to increase the proportion of children eating at
least one fruit or vegetable snack more than prior to the campaign. The project does not only focus on changing the food (snacking) habits of the children, but it also tries to change the knowledge and attitudes of the parents and carers of the child.
Design: The Snack Right initiative is an example of social marketing and consists
of several phases.
Scoping Phase; Partnerships and Funding. The first phase of the initiative - the
scoping stage - was set up to gain insight into the target audience and their purchasing behaviour. The results of the scoping stage revealed that an important factor that can influence a family’s purchasing decisions was big-brand advertising, since people easily recall specific advertisements and associated characters that appeal to children. The campaign thus needed to wield the same power as the brands that were selling less healthy food. It needed a strong and recognizable identity, and partnership – particularly with retailers - would be vital.
After mapping all possible partners (low budget supermarkets) and studying (Mosaic) consumer profiles, food retailer Aldi was chosen as a retail partner in phase one. The supermarket chain had shops in the right geographic areas, it
appealed to the target audience, it had a local supply policy on fresh products and it had signed up to the Government’s Healthy Start scheme.
Development Phase; Testing and Refining. During the development stage, the
Snack Right brand was developed and the messages of the campaign were stated. A number of factors affecting behaviour around healthy eating choices were set up. These included:
Barriers to healthy eating - a “can’t cook, won’t cook” attitude; a lack of
basic knowledge around nutrition; a belief healthy food was expensive food; preparing healthy food was time-consuming and inconvenient; children were likely to reject it and budgets were too tight to waste food
Influencers of healthy eating - children’s centre/nursery workers (generally
positive); retailers (often negative at the time); media (both negative and positive)
Motivators – retail offers (voucher promotions, product placement;
positive messages at point of sale); pester power of children
Simply focusing on the health benefits of healthy eating alone wouldn’t be effective
A belief some junk foods led to hyperactivity
Research showed that the negative behaviour could be challenged if an intervention captured the following:
Healthy snacks benefit long and short-term health Fruit and vegetables aren’t expensive
Healthy snacks can be quick and easy to prepare Early food preferences stay with you for life Healthy snacks can improve kids’ behaviour Slow release snacks keep child energised longer
It was agreed that snacking should be the focus of the intervention. The key behaviour goal would be for children aged 3 from deprived neighbourhoods to
Snack Right
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