What Can Schools Do To Encourage Healthy Eating?

Current estimates suggest that 50% of the British adult population will be obese by 2020.

Part of the requirement of being a healthy school is to encourage healthy behaviour with regard to eating and physical activity. 

You will find free resources on this website to support this work including:

• Food for Life Partnerhship - three schools in Swindon have already achieved Food for Life awards, Haydon Leigh is the flagship school in Swindon and have acheived the Silver award, The Ridgeway School and South Marston have both achieved bronze awards. 
• Having a whole school food policy that is owned by the school community and regularly updated is a useful first step in embedding health eating in school. This can include school policy on packed lunches, snacks in school as well as school meals.
• Promoting school meal uptake, particularly for children/young people entitled to free school meals.  Independent evaluation of the Food for Life partnership has shown links between attainment and involvement with the partnership.
• Physical activity is a key component of maintaining a healthy weight.  Schools can encourage walking and cycling as well as participation in sport and activity.  The school sports partnership can help you with this. There are also emotional health and well being benefits from taking part in sport, particulalry for those children not usually involved in team sports.  Read Robert Le Kyng's inspirational case study.  For children who are already overweight the MEND programme offers support for all the family to make healthy food choices and get more active.