Children’s Cooking Competition Aims to Tackle Obesity

June 29, 2015

Children’s Cooking Competition Aims to Tackle Obesity Later in Life

New Zealand is raising a generation of kitchen strangers, a trend that concerns the NZ Nutrition Foundation.

With parents more likely to consult their teenagers about what takeaway meals to order, than what dishes to make at home, the Nutrition Foundation hopes its national cooking competition will encourage teens into the kitchen, and out of the obesity rankings.

“It’s disappointing to think that a staggering 16 per cent of parents never get their kids involved in cooking, and a further 24 per cent would get kids in the kitchen less than once every three weeks [1],” NZ Nutrition Foundation dietitian Sarah Hanrahan says.

“We are raising a generation of kitchen strangers, and it’s been well documented that poor nutrition can lead to obesity.”

The Just Cook Create a Family Meal Challenge aims to inspire all youth to get in the kitchen to learn to cook, to help develop the necessary skills to eat healthy for life. Kids aged 11 to 18 are asked to put their own spin on family meals – with $1,500 in prizes awarded for the most nutritious creations.

“Just Cook isn’t looking for the next Junior Master Chef. We want teens to enjoy cooking for their family and see how easy it is,” Hanrahan says. “We see it as an important step in encouraging kids to choose home-cooked meals over takeaways so that as adults they are making healthier choices.”

More than a third (36%) of New Zealand children are overweight or obese. This figure rises to 60% of Pacific Island children and 40% of Maori children.

Worldwide, obesity has more than doubled since 1980 and is the cause of more deaths than hunger [2]. Global research suggests childhood weight status is a good predictor of adult weight status.

So as well as a teen-targeted cooking challenge, each year the Nutrition Foundation provides Just Cook Kits for a diverse range of community groups including marae, supergrans, schools, sports clubs, diabetes management groups and health organisations. This month it sent out 160 kits filled with pantry staples such as rice, oats and canned vegetables along with recipe cards and grocery vouchers.

These will be used for cooking demonstrations and classes, workplace challenges, group get togethers and nutrition education sessions throughout New Zealand.

“Whether it’s families, community groups or even teens collaborating with friends, we want people of all ages to get in the kitchen and enjoy making meals,” Sarah says.

“Involve your children in planning your meals, get them thinking about recipes and how they can create their own dish by adding extra ingredients. Of course, getting them to help clean up may be a little harder.”

The Just Cook competition is open from June 29 to July 26, and has five categories:

o Beef + Lamb NZ Magic Mince

o Tegel Affordable Family Favourites

o I Love Eggs

o Sanitarium Plant based Family Meals

o Wattie’s Colour Your Plate with Veg Draw

To enter, go online at justcook.co.nz and upload a recipe and a photo of the finished product. The winners will be announced in August.

[1] New Zealand Children’s Food and Drink Survey (2008), commissioned by the Health Sponsorship Council. Of those parents and caregivers asked how often their child helped in the preparation of meals, just under one in four (24%) said less often than about every third week and 16% said that this never happened. Just under one-half (47%) of parents and caregivers said that they choose together the type of takeaway foods that their child ate at home. More than a quarter of parents and caregivers (28%) said that their child rarely or never helps to plan meals.

[2] Global Burden of Disease Study, 2010, published in the British medical journal, The Lancet. More than 2.1billion people – nearly 30% of the global population, are overweight or obese. That is nearly 2.5 times the number of people who are undernourished. Obesity if responsible for 5% of deaths worldwide.

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