Dish
it Up!
a multi-media, interactive Cd-Rom to motivate
teenage healthy eating |
Interactive
multi-media offers enormous potential as a medium to
develop school focussed nutrition education interventions
and can be designed around effective models of behaviour
change. The Food Standards Agency commissioned the University
of Ulster to design and evaluate a Cd-Rom called Dish
it Up! which can help to motivate 11-12
year olds to eat more healthily. A major focus of this
educational tool is to promote autonomy, decision-making
skills and self-esteem with regard to healthy eating
behaviour.
The
central concept of Dish it Up!
is a ‘virtual’ day or ‘day in the
life’ of the young person, which is designed to
provide personally relevant situations, environments
and dilemmas that face 11-12 year olds with respect
to food, and provide insights, information and understanding
on food-related issues. |
|
| Dish
it Up!’s central theme is one of achieving
a balanced diet; specifically covering a range of issues,
including having breakfast, snack foods, lunchtime in
the school canteen and so on, and themes such as balance
and variety, self esteem, peer pressure, physical activity,
choosing a balanced diet, and misconceptions about foods/diets.
The themes run throughout the CD-ROM and impinge on several
of the issues. |
| |
Each
episode is alive with interactive elements such as fun
and educational games and quizzes. A fridge is packed
with factual information about food, diet and health.
A diary enables the young person to keep track of everything
they eat and can be used to analyse their real diet,
set themselves personal targets and see if they reach
their goals. A ‘Balance-a-tron’ analyses
everything they choose to eat during the virtual day
or during a real day and gives feedback based on the
Balance of Good Health.
The
development and evaluation of the CD-ROM involved liaison
with 11-12 year old children in schools throughout the
UK. |
| Lunch
time in school canteen
In
this section the pupil is invited to play a game involving
meal-time choices. Here the focus is on barriers such
as lack of choice, time pressures, cost and variety.
|
Teachers
of Key Stage 3 (in Scotland P7-S2) will find this tool
useful across a range of curricular areas such as food
technology, home economics, personal, social and health
education, science and information technology.
Since the Food Standards Agency is making Dish
it Up! freely copiable by teachers, it can
also be used by young people in their home environment
and would be ideal for use in after-school clubs. |
|
In mid-October 2002 the Agency provided a free copy of
the CD-ROM to all secondary schools in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland with an option for each school to
order 2 more free copies. Dissemination to Scotland will
follow shortly. Health
professionals who work with secondary schools may wish
to ensure that relevant teachers within the school who
could use Dish it Up! know
about it and claim their free copies from:
Food Standards Agency Publications
Tel: 0845 606 0667
Minicom: 0845 606 0678
Fax: 020 8867 3225
Email: foodstandards@eclogistics.co.uk
For
further information about Dish it Up!
please contact Rufina Acheampong, at
The Food Standards Agency,
Room 808C, Aviation House
Kingsway
London WC2B 6NH
Tel: 020 7276 8925 or e mail: rufina.acheampong@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
Ed.
Note: This is great fun and useful for kids of all ages
- I enjoyed playing with it! |
|
|
The ‘balance-a-tron’
The
pupil is invited to enter all food and drink consumed
into a diary which is analysed and the results shown
by a ‘balance-a-tron’ based on the Balance
of Good Health (a pictorial representation of the recommended
proportions of foods in the diet).
|
The Focus on Food Campaign |
The
Focus on Food Campaign was founded by the RSA (Royal
Society for the encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce) as a flagship education
initiative in 1998. The Campaign aims to raise the
profile and importance
of practical food education and help secure, sustain
and strengthen the position and status of food in the
National Curriculum.
The work focuses on the making
of food as the key experience in learning about the
social
importance of food. |
|
Focus on Food provides
free resources to schools and training and workshops
for teachers and pupils using the Cooking Bus, a
huge pantechnicon that expands to form a fully equipped
state of the art food area for 16 teachers or pupils.
For further information
about Focus on Food and how to register your school,
please contact Lucy Burns at: Focus on Food, Dean
Clough, Halifax, HX6 4LU. Telephone 01422 383191,
fax: 01422 341148 or e-mail:
lucy@design-dimension.co.uk or visit http://www.waitrose.com/focusonfood/index.htm |
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January
03 / End of Page Eight |
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