Children’s health

Updated Child Health Promotion Programme

The Child Health Promotion Programme (CHPP): Pregnancy and the first five years of life was updated in March 2008. It is a best practice guide for children’s services to help them deliver health promotion programmes. The updated programme gives more emphasis to: the wellbeing of children in early stages; breastfeeding; and the prevention of obesity.

Let’s get cooking

The Let’s get cooking scheme consists of a network of cookery clubs for young people and parents funded by the Lottery Fund. Over the next five years the School Food Trust will be responsible for setting up a network of 5,000 after school cooking clubs. All clubs will organise cooking activities to involve the whole community, including seasonal food charts, food safety advice, easy recipes and downloadable materials.

Visit our children’s education website for child-friendly recipes and advice on healthy living.

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) Programme 

The FNP is an evidence-based home-visiting programme delivered by specially trained nurses and midwives. It aims to improve the health of low-income first-time parents and their children by focusing on pregnancy outcomes, child development and economic self-sufficiency.

The government has been running the programme as a pilot in ten areas since March 2007. Early findings of the evaluation look promising with high levels of enrolment and enthusiasm from the nurses and the parents.

The National Child Measurement Programme

The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) is part of the government’s strategy to prevent childhood obesity. It was established in 2005 and is run by the Department of Health (DH) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

As part of the NCMP, every year children in Reception (4-5 years old) and Year 6 (10-11 years old) are weighed and measured. This helps plan services for children and gather population-level data to survey trends in growth patterns and obesity in children.

From September 2008, all parents of children in Reception and Year 6 who take part in the scheme will receive their child’s results, regardless of their weight, unless the parent requests not to receive the results.

The Children’s Food Campaign

This campaign, developed by the charity Sustain, aims to improve young people’s health through better food and food teaching in schools. The Children’s Food Campaign strives to protect children from junk food marketing and advocates for clearer food labelling. Over 300 organisations and 12,000 members of the public support the campaign.

School Food Standards

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) sets the standards for school food and allocates the budget for this to local authorities. The School Food Trust (SFT) is a non-departmental public body established by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DfES) in September 2005 to help develop new school food standards. Local authorities have the responsibility to provide school meals, which have to meet the school food standards.

In May 2006 new food-based standards were introduced for lunches. These are statutory standards and schools are required to implement them.

From September 2008 new nutrient-based standards were introduced in primary schools and will be compulsory in secondary schools by September 2009. The new standards have been created to reduce the consumption of fat, sugar and salt and to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among children. Specifically, 14 key nutrients have been identified for which minimum (vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and carbohydrate) and maximum (fat, saturated fats, sodium, non-milk extrinsic sugars) standards have been given.

Ofsted is responsible for the monitoring of the implementation of the School Food Standards.

Eat Better, Do Better advertising campaign

Eat better, Do better is a School Food Trust's public awareness campaign. It aims to promote to children the new school lunches served after the introduction of new standards in September 2008.

Television advertising of food and drink products to children (regulated by Ofcom)

From 1 April 2007, advertisements of food and drink products high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) as defined by the Food Standards Agency’s nutrient profiling model, are banned in or around children’s programmes (including pre-school children), or programmes that are likely to be watched by children aged four to nine years. In January 2008 new regulations extended the ban to programmes aimed at children aged 4 to 15 years.

Read more about television advertising of food and drink products to children