Educators from all around the region, including primary school teachers in County Carlow, gathered at The Talbot Hotel for a Food Dudes Presentation Day to honour the accomplishments of schools that have finished their four-year involvement in the renowned Food Dudes Programme.
The four-year curriculum-linked programme consists of three in-school Food Dudes Weeks after a year-long intervention to encourage healthy eating among primary school students. The goal of the healthy eating programme is to get kids to eat more fresh produce. It is built around incentives, frequent sampling of fresh fruit and vegetables, and positive role models.
Teachers get a chance to network and experience being a part of a community of change through the Food Dudes Presentation Days. Peer support is encouraged and ideas are exchanged regarding how the Food Dudes programme can be incorporated into everyday routines and the curriculum.
A refreshed version of the Food Dudes programme is presently being implemented in schools. It features new fruit and vegetable varieties, more tasting events, eco-friendly prizes, and new teaching and learning resources like bilingual activities, recipes, and videos.
Presently, more than 1,600 elementary schools are involved in the four-year Food Dudes initiative, which is fostering a movement of lifelong transformation by integrating healthy eating into the school and larger community in a way that encourages children to eat healthily, lowers obesity rates, and enhances overall wellbeing. More than one million students and more than 3,300 elementary schools have participated in Food Dudes over the program’s history.
Under the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme, the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine in Ireland and the European Union provide funding for the Food Dudes Healthy Eating Programme. The programme is overseen by Bord Bia. The Food Activity Research Unit at Bangor University in Wales’ School of Psychology was originally responsible for developing the programme.
More information about the Food Dudes Programme can be found at www.fooddudes.ie.
