Background and Context:
Cancer Council NSW’s (CCNSW) Eat It To Beat It (EI2BI) program aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption in families with primary school aged children. The current consumption of fruit and vegetables amongst adults in NSW is alarmingly poor with 90% of adults not eating the recommended amount of vegetables and 50% not eating enough fruit.
EI2BI was developed and piloted in the Hunter NSW region where it has been successfully operating since 2008. In 2012 the program expanded to several areas across NSW.
In Greater Wester Sydney the program is supported by the Western Sydney and Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health Districts (LHDs) Live Life Well @ School (LLW@S) program.
The EI2BI and LLW@S programs complement one another with EI2BI able to provide nutrition information to the parent community of primary schools.
Aim:
To increase family fruit and vegetable consumption through maximising parent participation in the CCNSW EI2BI workshops through a formal partnership between the CCNSW and the two LHDs.
Strategy/Tactics:
The LHDs promote the EI2BI program to LLW@S schools and help CCNSW to establish relationships with those schools to engage parents in the program. In turn, CCNSW help LLW@S schools promote healthy eating to their wider school community, through EI2BI workshops, sessions and snippets.
Programme/Policy Process:
Schools who are interested in EI2BI submit an Expression of Interest form which is followed up by the Regional Project Officer to implement the components of the EI2BI program.
Outcomes/What was learned:
The partnership between CCNSW and the Local Health Districts has significantly increased recruitment of schools to the EI2BI program. 157 schools have expressed an interest in EI2BI which is significantly higher than other areas where a formal partnership with the LHD does not exist.