How do we get children engaged with nutrition?
It is clear our early years are crucial in shaping the rest of our lives, but when it comes to food, those years can be a roller coaster.
The foods that comfort children, the foods they want, the foods they crave (and the foods they are sold), are not always the best things for them.
As any parent knows, it can be a nightmare trying to get your children to eat a balanced diet.
And, sorry folks, it does not get any easier with teenagers.
So, how should we go about engaging kids in food?
How do we help them appreciate tastes and flavours, and go beyond that, to appreciate concepts like healthy nutrition, or diet or sustainability?
It is important, not just for their health, but for the health of the world they are growing up in.
Dr Paul Myers, Managing Director, Farm Urban
After getting his PhD in epigenetics, exploring how environmental factors can affect our DNA and in turn our health and wellbeing, Paul met Farm Urban’s co-founder Dr Jens Thomas and shortly thereafter, the business was born.
Paul leads Farm Urban, building new stakeholder relationships, working with investors and helping to grow the business and impact and share its story.
Helenna Vaughan-Smith, Senior Product Manager, Enginuity
Responsible for the delivery and launch of Skills Miner education games in Minecraft, designed to identify skills in young people and introduce them to careers in Engineering and Manufacturing.
Tomo Delaney, Founding Partner, Noshi
Noshi was founded in 2015 in New York City by Tomo Delaney. Tomo had previously spent his entire career working in the fashion industry (supermodels, beaches, parties), first in London and then New York, before settling down and becoming a stay at home dad to his kids Dot and Davy in 2010.
Everything was wonderful except that both kids were extremely picky eaters. After months trawling the kids’ aisles of his local grocery stores in New York looking for anything that might make mealtimes more exciting, and being amazed that there were no ‘fun’, healthy options, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
The result? Food Paint™: tubes of different coloured organic fruit puree that kids can paint on their food and then eat.
Food Paint launched in 2017 and was introduced into Walmart stores in 2019. Noshi now sells Peppa Pig Food Paint and Crayola Food Paint, and is about to launch its own-brand Sketchup™ – tubes of organic ketchup for kids to draw with.
The message, though, is simple – it’s all about empowering kids. Giving them responsibility, and products they can call their own.
