Veggie Run - New app for Havering children
Veggie Run, England’s first council-created app to promote healthy eating to primary and junior school children was launched by Havering Council today
The Veggie Run app, developed with local Havering children and supported by Change4Life and Quorn, aims to address the rising obesity epidemic in the borough and highlight the health benefits of a healthy school catered lunch.
Veggie Run presents the newly created ‘Crunch Bunch’ characters who were designed to appeal to children aged 4-11 years old. It is a first of its kind, and it aims to teach children to dodge unhealthy foods and earn rewards by collecting fruit and vegetables. Users will also be able to view weekly school lunch menus and parents can purchase meals via the app's links.
The benefit of playing Veggie Run is that Havering school children can compete top win sporty prizes for themselves and their school each term.
Prizes have been sponsored by Everyone Active, which is part of Sports and Leisure Management Ltd, the longest-established leisure contractor in the UK; Quorn the leading global meat substitute company; Cycles UK Romford and Havering sports collective. There are also opportunities for pupils to receive credit towards free catered lunches for one week from sQuid or a new bike.
The Council has worked with Engayne Primary school in Upminster since last summer developing children’s ideas on what they thought an app needed to do to encourage healthy eating.
Dennis Brewin, Head of HES Catering Services, said:
“One of the main reasons the app has been developed is due to recent evidence that only one percent of packed lunches are healthy. We hope that by playing the game primary and junior school children in the borough will be able to identify the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.
“All Crunch Brunch characters in Veggie Run are used across all new primary and Junior school menus in the borough to ensure children see the direct link between game play and healthy eating.”
Change4Life Spokesperson said:
“Veggie Run is a brilliant and an exciting app to help children understand about healthy eating, we are proud to support such an innovative app that directly rewards children with sports prizes.”
The game was trialled with pupils at Engayne Primary School, and we received the following feedback
Isa, aged 9, said:
“This game helps you understand which foods are unhealthy.”
Miley Allen, aged 9, said:
“It’s a really good game, I know I should eat more vegetables after playing this game. It will help you if you don’t understand about sugar.”
You can download the app from Apple and Google Play stores.