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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.

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!

Health Education Trust

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