Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign contributes to long-term improvement of children’s diets
Over half (53%) of parents with children involved in the schools’ programme reported a long-term benefit in not only the volume of vegetables consumed, but also the variety.
With 29% of children eating less than one portion of vegetables per day, Veg Power and ITV believe these results are an important step in improving children’s diets and the health of our nation.
The Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign ‘inspires’ children to eat more veg by combining the power of advertising with a schools’ programme. It brings together celebrities, supermarkets, chefs, schools, communities and families.
Dan Parker, chief executive of Veg Power said: “By increasing vegetable consumption in children over the long-term it will have a huge impact on the quality of their diet and indicates the importance of exposing as many children as possible to it. On a more personal note, I am still blown away by the passion, brilliance and dedication of so many for this campaign.
“The diverse alliance of hundreds of organisations and thousands of schools that is Eat Them to Defeat Them is quite extraordinary. My sincerest thanks to the teachers, the caterers, the experts and celebrities, our media partners and sponsors and above all to our partners at ITV and the wonderful team at Veg Power.”
Since it launched in 2019, the campaign has directly generated an additional £132m in vegetables sales, equivalent to 1.4Bn children’s vegetable portions. This year’s campaign was supported by £3.5m of advertising led by ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Media reaching 57% of families with children.
Evaluation data confirmed that 45% of children and 31% of parents who saw the advertising ate more veg. Applying these figures to the population of UK children, this equates to 1.36m children eating more vegetables as a direct result.
The schools’ programme had another successful year, with now over 1.5 million different children from 4,884 primary and special schools benefiting over the last five years.
Susie Braun, director of social purpose at ITV, added: "Eat Them To Defeat Them is proof that it’s possible to make long-lasting change through communication - not just to how children think about vegetables, but also to what they choose to eat.”