Getting active and acquiring healthy eating habits can help children achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. We’re working hard to do all we can to promote healthier lifestyles and diets for kids.
The objective of the Nestlé Healthy Kids Global Programme is to raise nutrition and health knowledge and promote physical activity among school-age children around the world.
Empowering teachers and schools
Through their teachers, children and adolescents learn the basics of nutrition, develop a positive approach to food, and receive practical advice on improving eating and drinking habits. Physical activity sessions are included in most cases. The programme’s framework is flexible, enabling schools to tailor the programme to the specific health and nutritional needs of their communities.
Healthy Kids programmes are based on multi-partnership approaches: we work with over 300 partners worldwide, including national and local governments, NGOs, nutrition health institutes and sport federations.
At a global level, Healthy Kids partners with the EPODE International Network to support the development of the programme.
As at December 2016, we were actively working with 311 partners to deliver our Healthy Kids Global Programme in 84 countries.
These efforts increase children's basic knowledge of the importance of nutrition and physical activity, and have reached over 8 million children so far.
Assessing our impact
We assess the impact of Nestlé Healthy Kids Programmes through a global framework, based on the following goals:
- Eat nutritious and diverse meals
- Manage portions
- Choose water
- Play and be active
- Maintain good hygiene habits
Programmes are usually evaluated at a local level by external, independent bodies such as universities, scientific institutions and national academic organisations. As well as the reach and scale of our programmes, we also aim to measure their impact in terms of changes in knowledge and behaviour. We know behaviour change is challenging to measure and can take a long time to become sustainable, but it is critical if we want to ensure a long-term, positive influence on children.