Results
The Food Dude Healthy Eating Programme greatly increases the quantity and range of fruit and vegetables that children will consume as part of their regular diet. Across each school as a whole, it often doubles or even triples children's consumption of fruit and vegetables, with poorest eaters showing up to 12-fold increases.
Here is an example :
This graph shows the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten by children in a primary school before (hatched bars) and during (filled bars) the Food Dude programme.
Consumption of all types of fruit and vegetables increased following introduction
of the programme. The increases were particularly large for foods that
were unpopular at first, like prunes, pears, peas and green beans.
Key Findings from the Research (for further information go to our Food Dude Information Documents page)
- Large and long-lasting increases in consumption.
- By far, the greatest increases in consumption were shown by those children who ate the least at the start i.e., poorest eaters.
- The effects generalise across contexts i.e., school to home.
- Increases extend across a wide range of fruit and vegetable varieties.
- Equally effective for boys and girls.
- Works across the full age range of primary school children, i.e., 4-11-year-olds*.
- Effects are highly reliable, regardless of school location and social deprivation.
* The Bangor Food and Activity Research Unit have also developed a version of the programme for nursery children (2-4-year-olds), which has proved to be extremely effective.
So, when it comes to eating healthily, children should not be written off. Far from it. They can change quite easily to eating healthy diets, if they are helped to do so. And it is not difficult, with the help of the Food Dudes...