#KnowYourFood
Empowering children and young people to make healthier food choices
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Child overweight and obesity rates have grown rapidly in China over the past decades. Over 15 million in China are obese[1]. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children aged 6 to 17, which reached 19 per cent in 2020[2], continues to increase year by year. Without action, the threat of childhood obesity could have severe short-term and long-term consequences for children’s psychological development, as well as increasing the risks of obesity and associated health problems in adulthood.
The increase in overweight and obesity is being driven by a changing food environment with readily available cheap, ultra-processed food and sugar-sweetened beverages together with aggressive marketing that targets children and young people. To address this challenge, UNICEF China’s #KnowYourFood campaign aims to empower children and young people to make informed, healthy choices about their diet through improved nutrition literacy.
[1] Source: The 2015 Global Burden of Disease report
[2] Source: The 2020 National status of nutrition and NCD’s
#KnowYourFood Convenience Store
Mock convenience store highlights food environments around children
Convenience stores near schools or in communities expose children to ultra-processed foods high in fat, sugar, salt and energy. To help children and young people understand the potential health hazards of ultra-processed snacks, the campaign unveiled a pop-up convenience store filled with the most popular pre-packaged foods among children, such as sugar-sweetened beverages, potato chips and puff foods.
Unlike a regular store, this pop-up store does not sell snacks and drinks; it offers customers information on the ingredients and potential health impacts of snacks and drinks. You are invited to visit the mobile store in person in Chengdu (17 May), Weihai (20 May), and Enshi (20 May) or visit the online store.
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#KnowYourFood Laboratory
Some of your favourite snacks are known for containing high amounts of sugar, fat or salt, but how high can it be? The result might surprise you. We invited Dr. David Evans, a chemistry professor from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology and popular video blogger, to explore the truth about the ingredients through fun experiments.
Tips for children and young people
Eat five types of vegetables
Eat recommended snacks
Eat less ultra-processed food
Say No to sugar-sweetened beverages
Let's move together
Get enough sleep
The One-week Challenge
Are you ready to make a difference? Start by taking this one-week challenge.
Guardians of Foodtopia
NYT Kids Board game
Teaching nutrition
One month without sugar-sweetened beverages
We are calling schools to join the ‘one month without sugar-sweetened beverage’ campaign, in which selling of sugar-sweetened drinks through vending machines or convenience stores are not allowed on campus for a month. Students will be encouraged to drink water.
Has your school joined this campaign? Please tell us.
Tips for parents
Enable healthy choices
Three factors increasing child obesity rates
Child obesity rates are soaring. Here are three drivers of this alarming trend.
Reshaping urban retail food environments
It’s time to make sure every child has access to a healthy diet, with enough nutritious foods to thrive.
A healthy weight for every child in China
Addressing the challenge one school at a time.
Reports and research
