Let's Get Cooking Wins Prestigious Health Accolade

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 29 Apr 2009 - 6:00 PST

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Obesity and the public's diet habits are never far from the news and, with this in mind, leading public health charity, The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has today endorsed Let's Get Cooking - the national network of cooking clubs teaching children and their families how to cook good, healthy food.

Healthy eating is a familiar phrase, but the ability to prepare healthy, nutritious meals is a dying skill. Let's Get Cooking clubs, backed by £20 million from the Big Lottery Fund, are a fun way to redress this issue, giving children and their families the confidence to cook nutritious and tasty meals from scratch.

By 2010, Let's Get Cooking, led by the School Food Trust, will have signed up 5,000 school-based cooking clubs, in a bid to teach new cooking skills to more than one million children, family and community members.

Today RSPH endorses Let's Get Cooking by accrediting its two-day, demonstrator training course for full member clubs' adult leaders, of which there will be around 6,000 by 2011.

Let's Get Cooking's deputy operations manager, Maggie Sims, MBE, who developed the demonstrator training, said: "It is a great achievement for our demonstrator training programme to be independently validated and to meet the RSPH's high standards."

She adds: "This prestigious accreditation is a welcome acknowledgement of an important and highly valued element of Let's Get Cooking and will further enhance our club leaders' confidence."

The RSPH's accreditation scheme is designed to endorse training programmes that support health, hygiene and safety. The Let's Get Cooking training programme has undergone an expert review, assessing how effectively it prepares trainees in cookery demonstration skills and in food safety, nutrition and health and safety.

RSPH chief executive, Professor Richard Parish, said: "There's a crucial link between diet, lifestyle and health, with poor nutrition contributing to serious health problems including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Let's Get Cooking encourages children in good eating habits which can last a lifetime. Equally importantly, the children can then take the healthy eating message back to their families and the wider community. We congratulate Let's Get Cooking on gaining this RSPH accreditation as it shows the high standard of training and support the demonstrators receive to help them run the clubs safely and effectively. Well done!"

The Big Lottery Fund's wellbeing programme provides funding to support the development of healthier lifestyles and to improve wellbeing.

About The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH)

The RSPH is an independent, multi-disciplinary organisation, dedicated to the promotion and protection of collective human health and wellbeing. Through advocacy, mediation, empowerment, knowledge and practice, it advises on policy development, provides education and training services, encourages scientific research, disseminates information and certifies products, training centres and processes. A registered charity that enjoys patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, RSPH is the oldest public health body in the world, with over 150 years' experience in its field of protecting and promoting public health. For further information on RSPH accreditation of training programmes, please contact: Anna Zilnyk, Royal Society for Public Health, tel: 020 3177 1624, email: azilnyk@rsph.org.uk , website http://www.rsph.org.uk

About Let's Get Cooking

Let's Get Cooking is using Lottery funding to establish an initial network of 5,000 out-of-school cookery clubs in a bid to enable over one million children and family members to learn new cooking skills. Let's Get Cooking is led by the School Food Trust in partnership with a range of well-known organisations with experience in food skills and campaigning, including Prince's Trust, Business in the Community and Magic Outcomes. These spearhead projects aimed at key target audiences including teenagers, schools and communities in areas of high deprivation, and encourage sustainable support from businesses. The British Nutrition Foundation and the Royal Society for Public Health are also involved in an advisory capacity. For more information, please contact Ruth Coulthard, Communications Manager on 0114 259 1323 / 07917 266 570, or visit http://www.letsgetcooking.org.uk

About The Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund's support for Let's Get Cooking comes from its £165m wellbeing programme, which provides funding to support the development of healthier lifestyles and to improve wellbeing. The Big Lottery Fund has rolled out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December, 2006. Full details of the work of the Big Lottery Fund, its programmes and awards are available on the website: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.

Source
The Royal Society for Public Health

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