Background and Context:
Eat It To Beat It (EI2BI) is Cancer Council NSW’s flagship nutrition program which aims to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables families in NSW eat. 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 is a multi-strategy community based program which trains community members to deliver nutrition sessions. One of the core strategies of the EI2BI program is delivery of the Healthy Lunch Box sessions to parents of Kindergarten children via Kindergarten Orientation sessions.
Aim:
To improve parent’s knowledge, self-efficacy and intention to include fruit and vegetables as part of a child’s lunch box and to increase the reach of the program by using trained volunteers to deliver the majority of sessions.
Strategy/Tactics:
Volunteers are trained to deliver a 25 minute Healthy Lunch Box session which are usually delivered as part of a two hour seminar organised by school where Kindergarten parents learn about general aspects of the school environment. This allows EI2BI to reach parents as part of an existing audience reducing administration time in recruiting parents to attend.
Programme/Policy Process:
Each family who attends receives a show bag containing a CCNSW award-winning healthy lunch box resource and other supporting resources. Parents are asked to complete an evaluation form and return to CCNSW in a reply paid envelope after the session.
Outcomes/What was learned:
In July – December 2013 EI2BI delivered 262 Healthy Lunch Box sessions to 7,496 parents across NSW. 80% (n=209) of these sessions were delivered by trained volunteers. 801 parents (11%) returned an evaluation form. 81% of these parents (n=644) indicated that they intended to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in their child’s lunch box.