North Edinburgh kids score with healthy eating message

Charity calls full time on Responsible Business Week with Food Fuel Football event

Business in the Community Scotland (BITC), the Prince’s Responsible Business Network is bringing Responsible Business Week to a close with an exciting healthy session for kids in Edinburgh with a focus on football.

Over four hundred children from north Edinburgh will take part in Food Fuel Football this weekend at Spartans Community Football Club. Apex Hotels, Lidl UK and nutritionist Dr Laura Wyness will deliver a fun, healthy session looking at hidden sugars, balanced diets, and top tips for healthy snacks before and after sports.

The event is one of the activities organised by the Food for Thought Programme, a three-way partnership between the Scottish Government, Education Scotland and BITC Scotland which uses education to engage children on healthy eating and tackling obesity.

The Food for Thought Programme is supporting schools and school teachers across the country with their food education. The programme has supported almost 1,000 schools so far and recruited over 36,000 hours of business volunteering, offering children a range of activities from cooking, healthy eating, food and STEM growing to develop a young workforce.

Food Fuel Football is the last event being held in Scotland as part of Responsible Business Week (24-28 April), an annual campaign to raise awareness of the role responsible businesses play in creating a fairer society. The focus of the week is to engage and challenge bigger businesses to do more of what the best do well, while creating a space for Scotland’s SMEs to play a meaningful role in wider society.

Director of Business in the Community Scotland, Mark Bevan said: “We’re delighted with the support from our business partners in delivering this event as part of our Food for Thought programme which has been running for over four years. The success of the programme is a testament of the commitment of businesses of all sizes in making an impact into local schools and the education of young people – our future workforce.

“Children perform best when better nourished.  Food Fuel Football takes the healthy eating message to children in a sports setting – the perfect place for it.”

Zsolt Jakri, General Manager at Apex City of Edinburgh Hotel added: “In the hospitality industry health and wellbeing are two themes which are gaining a lot of momentum and are becoming more and more important to our customers. We are delighted to be a part of this community event, supporting the Food for Thought movement and helping youngsters understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle while looking to inspire them about the Scottish food and drink industry.”