Shropshire’s children centres team up with local social enterprise to combat childhood obesity

Shropshire Council’s children’s centres have teamed up with local social enterprise Lovelyland to help combat obesity in young children, and support local community resources.

The partnership has come together to launch a scheme in response to findings from Public Health England’s National Child Measurement Programme, who highlighted an issue with overweight and obesity levels in 0-5 year olds in Shropshire.

The Green Kitchen Project is a dynamic and fun introduction to food growing for young children and their families. The project hopes to provide opportunities for our youngest children to engage with food through a collection of informative and structured activities, which are all linked to either sowing, growing or harvesting food.

Figures show that in some parts of Shrewsbury more than 10% of children in Reception classes are obese. This trend almost doubles for those children weighed in Year 6.

Clare Andrew, a Lovelyland volunteer, stated:-

“Our projects provide opportunities for people to engage in activities promoting food production and healthy eating and as part of a wider effort to combat these recent figures Lovelyland, has teamed up with Shropshire Council’s children’s centres who will be delivering our Green Kitchen Project across all of their bases in Shrewsbury.”

David Minnery, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for children and young people,  added:

“This is an excellent example of Shropshire Council’s children’s centres in the Shrewsbury area working in partnership with a local community interest company to help parents develop their skills and knowledge around how food grows whilst having fun outdoors with their children. This should help address the issues around childhood obesity in the area, which will have huge benefits going forward.”

The food-growing activities will be part of the children’s centre Stay and Play sessions starting in March, and will provide vegetable seeds and plants, sourced by Lovelyland and funded by Incredible Edible Shropshire, that families can take with them and grow in their own homes.

To find out more about the project visit www.lovelyland.co.uk.

To find out more information about this and other activities at your local children’s centre visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/surestartcentralshropshire.