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Encouraging healthy lifestyles

Food in all its guises is a topic of interest to most children and, with the emphasis on persuading many of them to eat more healthily, discussions and projects on the topics of essential food stuffs are very valuable.

Each of the basic food products has an organisation to represent it, and these can offer a wealth of free material on good nutrition, thought-provoking food facts plus recipe books if you need ideas for cooking up a storm when school's out.

A pack from the British Egg Information Service includes Simply Kids - a child's guide to cooking with eggs which would make a useful starting point in teaching young children about this healthier version of fast food. It looks at the variety of ways in which eggs can be cooked and features some very simple dishes for the children to make - including Veggy Egg Pittas, Pizza Baked Eggs and Curly Egg Pasta. There are further leaflets describing the structure of the egg and the nutrients it contains and a comprehensive booklet called The Egg File, which is aimed at secondary school pupils but from which you could extract and simplify further information for your particular group of children.