Aldi competition to highlight healthy eating education in schools launches

Children in primary schools are more likely to eat healthily compared to secondary school age pupils, according to new research by Aldi.

The research has been commissioned as part of the supermarket chain’s Get Set to Eat Fresh campaign with Team GB.

The Get Set to Eat Fresh programme, which has been shortlisted for the ‘Community Programme of the Year’ award at the forthcoming BT Sport Industry Awards 2018, is committed to improving the healthy eating habits of 1.2 million children by 2020.

To help improve healthy eating habits and launch the next phase of Get Set to Eat Fresh, Aldi and Team GB are launching a ‘Design a bag’ competition across England, Scotland and Wales.

The competition challenges young people aged 5–14 to get creative and design a re-usable ‘Bag for Life’ that will inspire others to eat fresh fruit and vegetables.

It will be judged by Team GB’s favourite brothers, Alistair Brownlee and Jonny Brownlee.

Aldi interviewed 1,000 children aged 7–14 in the UK to find out about their healthy eating habits, in a bid to understand how education can play a part in developing children’s understanding of the value of nutritious food.

The findings from the research revealed a drop-off in healthy eating habits between primary and secondary school aged children, with 72 per cent of 7–8-year olds likely to eat fruit daily and only 59 per cent of 13–14-year olds likely to eat fruit daily.

Overall, the research discovered that children expressed a strong interest in wanting to improve their healthy eating habits.

Despite 50 per cent of the children interviewed admitting that they ate fast food or takeaways at least once a week, 41 per cent want to eat healthily more often and almost half (45 per cent) said the most effective way to teach children about eating healthily was through lessons in school and talking to teachers.

Oliver King, managing director of Corporate Responsibility at Aldi, said: “The Get Set to Eat Fresh programme is committed to arming teachers with the resources they need to teach children about eating, and cooking with, fresh, healthy food.

“Aldi continually look at ways to improve the existing resources we offer, and speaking to children directly to find out more about their eating habits, and what they need and want to improve, is a key part of our commitment to the programme. We’re encouraged that young people want to make better food choices, and we’re constantly thinking of new ways to get children engaged in healthy eating.”