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Being Healthy

 
We asked young people at the Y factor conference to tell us what being healthy means to them.

We found out that healthy eating and particularly school dinners are of concern to the young people.

There was a split opinion as to the value of Jamie Oliver's school dinners – some felt that there wasn’t enough variety (especially culturally) and others felt they were too expensive.

However, many people acknowledged that they needed help with eating healthily. There was a particular request around better vegetarian foods in schools and that parents should be better informed about healthy eating.

What was discussed?

The main issues discussed were:

  • healthy food is too expensive – you can get a pizza
  • young people are aware that unhealthy food is not good, the Government should encourage young people to eat better
  • it was good to try exotic fruit in the conference taster session
  • schools need to have more PSHE sessions (sex education) as they are only once a fortnight.

Changes

If young people took over the provision of services they would like to:

  • have more sex education sessions
  • shut fast food shops down and have more sandwich bars
  • put warnings on food and increase prices
  • have more variety of food prepared by professional people who can cook (young people agree food should be cooked properly or it is tasteless)
  • have more workshops in school, like the ones at the conference.

Key questions

The key questions that came out of the discussion were:

  • Why is there not more variety of foods in schools from various countries, by chefs that can cook?

  • Why is there not a gym in every school for young people to use?

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