Veg Power’s targeted, clever campaigns have struck a chord with kids, led by Eat Them to Defeat Them. But what about parents and guardians?
Yes, family leaders have a role to play in ensuring increased consumption of vegetables, and Veg Power has aimed many at them, as well.
The latest is a new free eLearning platform called Simply Veg Learning that Veg Power says is “designed to provide all families with access to expert-led public health interventions to enable them to improve their family’s veg-eating habits in a convenient and cost effective way.”
With children struggling to meet the five per day fresh produce goal and poor diet ravaging families in the UK, it is imperative to provide them mitigating steps and get kids on the road to good eating early. Nearly one-third of primary school students consume less than one porton of veg each day. So getting parents and caregivers on board is critical.
“Research tells us that families are struggling to get veg into their kids for all sorts of reasons,” says Dan Parker, CEO of Veg Power. “Our eLearning platform uses the latest evidence from a range of different experts in a gentle and inclusive way to support parents and carers. We are excited to deploy eLearning into a public health challenge and as it is low cost to us and 100% free to users, we believe it will be an effective way to reach the many families who would benefit. We’re asking others working to improve children’s dietary health to share this resource with anyone who they think would benefit.”
To do this on the platform, Veg Power has created an eLearning course called ‘Launch Into Veg’. A team of nutrionists, along with food expert Kim Smith and child psychologist Dr Clare Holley are helping put together a series of short videos that show parents how to get their kids to eat more veg and avoid food waste.
They are also building in fun activities, including weekly challenges to get the pickiest children to just eat one vegetable before building into more.
Veg Power is asking local authorities, schools, community groups, GP surgeries and other leaders to help in this worthwhile initiative. It also hopes to expand the series to include topics such as “feeding neurodiverse children, food neophobia and how to increase the variety of veg in kids with a very limited diet.”
The eLearning platform can be accessed at www.simplyveglearning.org.uk, while materials to support its promotion are available at https://vegpower.org.uk/simply-veg/.
