Promoting healthy eating among nursery children in North Lanarkshire.

Increasing the consumption of fruit & vegetables among 3-5 year olds and their families

HFfF supplies over 137 nurseries across NL with F&V, as well as offering health promotion sessions with a qualified nutritionist.

Previous evaluations of the project by the University of Glasgow has shown children attending NL nurseries to consume an average of between 3.5 and 3.7 portions of F&V per day (figures from 2013-2016 evaluations). This is an increase on the Scottish average for nursery age children, of 2.8 portions of F&V per day (Scottish Government, 2016)

CONTACT FOR MORE INFORMATION

PROGRAMME BACKGROUND

The High Five for Fruit project was started in 2005 by Lanarkshire Community Food and Health Partnership and is making a real difference to the diets of youngsters – and their families.

  • Improving diet – increasing the number of fruit and veg portions will do so much more than tackle obesity

  • Healthy eating successes – bucking the national trend which has seen campaigns struggle to improve diet

  • Provide & Promote – It is not enough just to provide people with access to fruit and vegetables, we need to demonstrate what to do with it

The High Five for Fruit initiative has extended beyond giving fruit and veg to children to selling reasonably priced produce to their parents through their network of food co-ops and healthy eating stalls.

AVAILABLE SESSIONS

In 2016 we introduced staff training to allow nurseries to run their own BCLC sessions and to bring more healthy eating activities into the nursery. To date we have trained 186 staff from 37 nurseries, with more booked in!

These are typically nutrition workshops that can cover topics such as general healthy eating, coping with food fussiness, understanding food labels, eating healthy on a budget and sugar awareness.

Occasionally we will also work with parents to do practical cooking sessions making cheap, healthy and easy family meals.

Children attend with their parents to prepare quick and healthy meals and snacks. Sessions are once weekly and courses typically last four weeks. Recent sessions have targeted children who were perceived to be fussy eaters from their parents/carers.

Children who took part in the course had a reduced food fussiness score between the beginning and end of the course, compared to a control group who did not attend (found by the 2018 University of Glasgow evaluation).

Children who took part in the course were also more willing to try green vegetables at a “tasting party”, compared to the control group. This shows that children who attended BCLC were more accepting of the vegetables used in the tasting party, which is important when trying to increase consumption of vegetables in children.

Emma Brown (MSc) ANutr

Development Officer

Telephone: o141 771 7927

Email: emmahighfive@outlook.com

Join Over 130 Nurseries as part of the programme

To find out more about the High Five for Fruit Programme please enter your details below.