Health & Nutrition - See and eat

Children are more likely to try vegetables and develop a liking for them if they first become familiar with them in picturebooks, and it is this visual link that provides the basis for the See & Eat resources website.

Part of the See & Eat project funded by EIT Food (European Institute of Innovation & Technology), the website features a range of activities and 24 interactive e-books in multiple languages.

The activities include matching and guessing games, a shopping list, a seasonal vegetable calendar and tips on growing, preparing and cooking vegetables.

Each e-book profiles a vegetable, showing what it looks like, and how it is grown, prepared and cooked. The books can be viewed and personalised, using audio, video and pictures, through the free-to-download Our Story 2 app.

The See & Eat project is led by the University of Reading and supported by partners including the British Nutrition Foundation.

Explaining the rationale for the resources, Dr Natalie Masento, of the University of Reading, says, ‘Vegetables can be particularly difficult to introduce into young children’s diets as they’re less sweet than fruit and can often be rejected when they’re first offered. It has been shown, however, that children’s acceptance of vegetables can be boosted purely through increasing visual familiarity, and therefore our project’s aim is to build on this research.’

The resources are now available in English, Italian, Finnish, Polish, Dutch and French.

CHILD HEALTH CRISIS

The development of the website comes just as childhood obesity levels reach new highs.

According to NHS Digital figures for the 2019/20 school year, almost one tenth (9.9 per cent) of Reception children are obese. That figure rises to 13.3 per cent of Reception children living in the most deprived areas, compared with 6 per cent in the least deprived areas. In Year 6, the proportion of obese children now stands at 27.5 per cent.

The new resources also coincide with an appeal by head teacher Dr Julian Grenier, who led on the revised EYFS guidance, to early years practitioners to prioritise child health, arguing that it ‘had been neglected far too much and too long’.

More information

• www.seeandeat.org
• www.eitfood.eu
• ‘Peas, please! Food familiarisation through picture books helps parents introduce vegetables into preschoolers’ diets’ by Laura H Owen, Orla B Kennedy, Claire Hill and Carmel Houston-Price, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29807124
• ‘Childhood obesity reaches record high’ and ‘Early years practitioners can make a positive difference to child health’ are at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk