Gloucester pupils learn to make healthier choices with new Be Food Smart app

 

Cllr Andrew Gravells from Gloucesterhire County Council will be showing pupils at Upton St Leonards Primary School how to make healthier food and drink choices using the new Be Food Smart app which launched earlier this year as part of Public Health England’s Change4Life campaign.

The special lesson will educate children about how much saturated fat, sugar and salt is in their favourite everyday food and drinks and how the Be Food Smart app can be used at home to get the whole family making healthier choices.

This complements the curriculum linked Change4Life Be Food Smart packs that are distributed to 16,500 primary schools placing teachers in a central role to help parents and children make healthier food and drink choices at home using the new Be Food Smart app.

The new Be Food Smart app allows children and parents to scan the barcode of their favourite food and drinks to reveal how much saturated fat, sugar and salt is in them.

The easy-to-use app clearly shows the number of saturated fat ‘blobs’, sugar cubes and salt sachets in each product and allows them to be compared, helping families make healthier choices.

Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead for Public Health England South West, Justine Womack, said: “Childhood obesity is all too common a problem across the country, so we need to do everything we can to instil good eating habits in children. Tools like Public Health England’s new app are a great way to get interactive with pupils and teach them about healthy eating.”

PHE and the council are also partners in a Whole Systems Obesity Programme for the county, one of four local authorities in the country to be selected for a three-year pilot scheme using the range of council services to address issues of excess weight.

Cabinet Member for Public Health and Communities at Gloucestershire County Council, Cllr Andrew Gravells, said: “This new smartphone app is a brilliant way to put healthy eating knowledge at the fingertips of tech-savvy young people. I’m looking forward to sharing it with pupils at Upton St Leonards, as well as discussing ways to help incorporate healthy eating into busy lives at school and beyond.

“The ‘Be Food Smart’ app is available for everyone to download from the Apple app store and Google Play.”

PE teacher at Upton St Leonards C of E Primary School, Elliot Prince, said: “Teaching children at a young age about food and how the choices they make affects their body sets them up for a future filled with healthier behaviours.

“In the classroom, we’ve already made Be Food Smart part of our lessons and hope this event arms our pupils with even more knowledge to help them feel confident about choosing healthier food and drink options.”

The Be Food Smart app also encourages families to play the ‘Food Detectives’ game together to uncover how healthy or unhealthy their food and drinks are.

There are also fun ‘mini-missions’ that help children and parents choose healthier breakfast cereals and show how to swap sugary drinks for smarter choices.

Download the new free Change4Life Be Food Smart app today to get tips on how to cut down the amount of total saturated fat, sugar and salt in your family’s diet.

Gloucester News Centre – http://gloucesternewscentre.co.uk