Scott Welsh, who works for the Economic Development Department, is currently sharing the 5-2-1-0 childhood obesity prevention campaign message across Island schools.
Mr Welsh works in a number of schools offering cooking classes, educating children about a balanced diet, exercise and health sessions and parent workshops.
Mr Welsh’s message is backed by a mother whose daughter was picked on when she took home-made food to school for lunch.
The mother, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect her child’s identity, said that her daughter was now asking to take unhealthy food to school, having been ‘dared’ to eat her home-made lunch in front of classmates.
She is now calling for an Islandwide policy to be used in all schools to encourage parents to send their children to school with healthier lunches.
She said: ‘I try to provide my daughter with a varied and healthy lunch box but recently my daughter has had comments on how horrible her lunch is, and several of her classmates have even dared her to eat a hot stew I made because they said it was “so disgusting”.
‘She now asks to be the same as everyone else – asking for cakes, crisps and biscuits in her lunch box.
Mr Welsh said he had heard of cases where some children might have been bullied because of their lunch choices and more needed to be done to stop this happening.
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