Healthy eating and exercise

Youthwatch Darlington, a creative and enthusiastic team of young volunteers, were inspired to deliver a campaign to raise awareness and promote positive lifestyle choices, in relation to eating and exercising, with families and young people in Darlington, after hearing about the rise in young people consuming unhealthy food and drink and increasing screen time.

They created a suite of resources for the Healthwatch Darlington website, encouraging young people and families to attend innovative activities and provide them with healthy eating ideas. This was a popular page for visitors. They also ran a competition encouraging young people and families to share their healthy food creations, helping to raise awareness along the way.

The Rotary Club of Darlington showed their support to this initiative by giving Youthwatch Darlington a grant of £250 which enabled them to create Seed & Wellbeing Boxes. The boxes went to over 50 children in Darlington who could grow their own herbs, with recipe cards and wellbeing tips included too. There was a great response from the families involved.

The many strands of the campaign successfully raised the profile of healthy eating and exercise in a fun, appealing and interactive way with young people and their families in Darlington. Feedback and numbers accessing resources were positive and showed there is a desire from young people to make healthy choices where there is encouragement to do so.