With nearly a quarterof Reception-year children in Birmingham overweight or obese, the Startwell programme was set up in January 2018 to help promote healthy lifestyles in early years settings through physical activity and healthy eating. 
Startwell is an award-based programme commissioned by Birmingham City Council. It allows PVI settings, nursery schools and Children’s Centres in Birmingham to work towards set criteria in order to achieve a Startwell award.
Local childminders can also access the programme’s training sessions, while the Startwell website provides resources to all practitioners. All of it is free.
Startwell team leader Sarah Bates explains, ‘We wanted to come up with a programme that really engages practitioners and children and embeds basic healthy eating and physical activity principles in their everyday routines. There were already programmes targeting schools, but we wanted to make this more applicable to the early years.’
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