Healthy eating is on the menu for young children and families across Wales

Healthy eating is on the menu for young children and families across Wales thanks to grants of up to 5,000 over the next two years, under the Welsh Assembly's Community Food Initiative. Twenty projects will receive funding to help tackle common barriers to nutritious eating, such as people's accessibility to healthy food and its cost. One of the beneficiaries is the Sure Start 'Five a Day' Fruit and Vegetable Project in Merthyr Tydfil, which is based on the Welsh National Assembly's campaign to introduce the consumption of five pieces of fruit and vegetables in daily diets. The project is to receive 4,800 over the next two years, which will be put towards buying fresh fruit and vegetables for 50 vulnerable families in the area. Mel Jones, Merthyr Tydfil local health alliance co-ordinator, said, 'Nutritionists say children are adaptable to food that is offered to them, so we are hoping this initiative will help them embed fruit and vegetables into their diet at an early age and that it will be sustained throughout adulthood. We will introduce segments of different fruit such as oranges at breaktimes and mealtimes.'