What is PhunkyFoods?
Research evidence and need
The prevalence of overweight and obesity in school-age children in England and Wales has doubled in as little as the last ten years. The prevalence of obesity in children aged between 2 and 10 years now stands at over 15.5%. Research evidence from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey of young people aged 4 - 18 years also suggests that young people eat less than half the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and 20% eat no fruit at all in an average week. In addition 58% of 7-10 year-olds are largely inactive, that is spending less than an hour per day participating in activities of moderate intensity.
Purely Nutrition is a nutrition consultancy, run by degree qualified, registered nutritionists, specialising in training techniques for the incorporation of healthy eating and physical activity messages into daily life.
As nutrition and fitness experts we acknowledge the enormous need for education and development of healthy eating and physical activity programmes for children in line with the national curriculum. In society children receive mixed messages on a daily basis - tempting foods, clever advertising, and family members doing a different diet every week. This is why it is so important for young children to be given consistent, key messages coupled with the skills to make informed choices about food, healthy eating and physical activity.
In order to reverse the current negative trend in the UK it is essential that successful strategies for improving the diets of children are developed. Based on research commissioned by Purely Nutrition and Northern Foods (PhunkyFood's anchor sponsor) it was found that an appropriate healthy lifestyle intervention for children should.
- Target primary school children
- Be a comprehensive and on-going programme of work (not a one-off intervention)
- Be informed by children's views, experiences and food choice behaviours
- Include hands-on and "taster" experiences with foods
- Incorporate parental involvement
School-based interventions should;
- Build on the "whole-school" approach
- Engage and enlist the support of schools through school gate keepers
- Keep teacher preparation time a minimum
- Fit nutrition education into the existing curriculum in a time efficient manner
- Train teaching staff to build motivation and confidence in the subject area
And out of this research came PhunkyFoods.
We are currently looking to secure funding for an independently managed randomised-controlled trial of the PhunkyFoods programme. In the meantime we are routinely collecting our own data on children's health knowledge and dietary patterns which will be independently analysed for on-going assessment.