Health experts have been fighting the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ using sushi and Japanese health foods with schoolchildren in London’s East End where child obesity rates are high.
A two-day Japan event was staged at Marner Primary in Bromley-by-Bow for pupils and parents by the ArtSpokes social enterprise, which aims to improve children’s health with its Banana Bytes campaign.
“More than four-out-of-10 children are overweight or obese at age 11 in Tower Hamlets,” ArtSpokes’ Sarah Hammond said. “Schools are the key to ensuring the next generation grows up making the right choices so that we win the battle against childhood obesity.”
The children were shown how to make sushi and write haiku poetry to encourage healthy eating.
They wrote poetry inspired by local and exotic fruits, vegetables and fish from Poplar’s Chrisp Street Market.
It was part of a five-week Banana Bytes project focusing on low-fat foods like sushi.
They also made a video with film-maker Tim Newton looking at the fat content of one of their favourite snacks, chicken and chips—and “deadly chips” in particular.
The Banana Bytes programme involves four primary schools in Poplar and Bow.
The information they learn is being used in their own creative designs and then reproduced professionally as booklets, leaflets, posters and videos distributed to East End health centres, libraries and pharmacies.
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