Better Health Food Scanner App Campaign
Better Health is here to help your family eat better and move more. Families are up against a flood of unhealthy food options, so Better Health has updated the NHS Food Scanner App to make it easier for parents to find healthier food and drink for their children. The app will help parents to combat pester power whilst keeping the kids happy.
The Food Scanner App is a handy health hack for families that helps them to swap unhealthy food that are higher in sugar, saturated fat and salt, to healthier choices. By making a few easy swaps, you can make a real difference to your child’s health. For healthy swaps, recipes, tips for your family and to download the free NHS Food Scanner App, click here.
Why download the Food Scanner App?
There are a surprising amounts of sugar, saturated fat and salt in everyday food and drinks we give our kids. Over time having too much sugar, saturated fat and salt can cause harmful changes on the inside. These harmful changes put us at risk of serious diseases in the future like heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Too much sugar, salt and saturated fat harms our children’s health and many food our children like have high levels of these, but it can often be tricky to work out which. More than 1 in 4 children aged 4-5 years and 4 in 10 aged 10-11 years is overweight or obese.
Our kids might seem fine on the outside by too much sugar and saturated fat can lead to the build-up of harmful fat on the inside that we can’t see. This fat around their vital organs can cause serious disease in the future. Too much salt can raise our blood pressure putting us at risk of getting heart disease or having a stroke. Too much sugar can also cause tooth decay.
Good Choice Badge
You’ll be surprised how easy it is to find healthier food and drinks for your kids with the Good Choice badge swaps. The Good Choice badge will help you identify healthier options in the Food Scanner App and when you’re shopping in store and online. A quick scan using a product’s barcode will show you if it’s a ‘Good Choice’. Keep an eye out for the Good Choice badge in the App, and when you’re shopping in store or online.
App Functionality
The Food Scanner App brings food labels to life. With a quick scan of a barcode, you can see how much sugar, saturated fat and salt are in your family’s favourite food and drinks.
The app also has a built in AR (augmented reality) technology which provides a fun way to engage both parents and children to find ‘good choice’, celebrate and be motivated to choose healthier food and drink long-term.
The free Food Scanner App is available from the App Store or Google Play for FREE.
What else can you do?
Download the Children’s Healthier Eating Toolkit – This pack contains ten different activities to help you support your family and other families to make positive changes to their diet, with a particular focus on making healthier swaps. Activities are easy to run, require minimal preparation and no expert knowledge. They’re perfect for children between the ages of 4-11, with some activities aimed at children as young as 2.
Go to Healthy Eating Public Health England School Zone to download activity toolkits which can be used in differing school settings to help reduce obesity in the children in your school.
