Blog: Food – a fact of life serves up valuable tools for teachers

AHDB's senior education manager Elsa Healey looks at the value of teaching children about nutrition and how the Food – a fact of life initiative helps teachers do this.

Food is one of the biggest contributors to good health in children – as they say, ‘you are what you eat’. A healthy diet has multiple benefits. Not only does the right food provide kids with the proper nutrition needed for development and growth, but it can also help them concentrate, stay alert and be more engaged at school. And, if healthy eating habits are instilled in a child at an early age, these behaviours are more likely to continue throughout their lives – bringing a wealth of benefits. All these factors make healthy eating a top priority for kids, and schoolteachers are in a unique position to bring these teachings to life in the classroom.

This is why Food - a fact of life is such a valuable tool for teachers across the country. The online resources are provided by AHDB and the British Nutrition Foundation, who work in partnership to deliver the education programme to support teaching of children aged three to 16 years. With a selection of activity packs, quizzes, lesson plans, presentations and worksheets, the resources offer a wide range of teaching assets to appeal to pupils of all ages, across all regions of the UK. And with the new school term just days away, schools can take advantage of even more free resources which are designed to be colourful, informative and engaging.

Our resources not only help children to gain in-depth knowledge of what foods they should be putting into their bodies, they also teach them how to cook delicious and healthy meals. Our recipes are so varied and innovative that even teachers have told us they enjoyed experimenting with new cuisines that they’d previously never tried.

Helping children develop a passion for cooking can not only inspire them to try new things, but it can also ignite a passion for food that will lead to an enjoyable and lucrative career, should they wish. Also, incorporating our resources into lesson plans will most certainly equip children with essential life skills, such as planning and timekeeping, the ability to research and budget – something that proves more significant today with the current cost of living crisis.

But as well as helping kids to understand the importance of healthy foods in their diets, the resources are also designed to teach children about where their food comes from. As a levy-payer organisation, educating the next generation forms part of AHDB’s strategy to protect and promote the reputation of British agriculture. We do this by focusing on developing accurate and up to date education resources with the aim of reaching and informing consumers of the future, to ensure that children have a greater understanding of food and farming here in the UK.

In our recent Shape the Future survey, we saw that levy payers value education and want to see this higher up the agenda, so we will continue to educate the next generation about the role our hard-working farmers play in putting food on their plates.