JPAC Elite Sports CIC: Healthy Eating and Cooking Sessions

Jpac provides a range of sports, arts, crafts and design and cooking activities for 4- to 11-year-olds across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, catering for children of all abilities including those with SEND. They provide a variety of sports activities from more common sports including ball skills to other less familiar sporting activities such as lacrosse, frisbee floating, volleyball etc. In addition to their sporting activity, children are also provided with a range of different materials to create items to take home e.g. stone pets, recycled cork creatures or tie-dye T-shirts.

As part of the holiday club, Jpac introduced a cooking element to their programme, instructing the children as they prepared and cooked simple foods such as French bread pizza, fruit salad, soup, flan and wraps which could be taken home or eaten as a picnic with their friends.

Children were encouraged to participate in the preparation of the food and the ‘construction’ of the meal, as they prepared the vegetables and fruit they learnt about the importance of a balanced meal and ways to make simple, inexpensive meals. They learn how to eat healthily and how to make choices in their everyday life which will help them to develop healthy attitudes towards food and a healthy body.

After continuing to provide cooking workshops as part of the holiday club, the Jpac team noticed children were enthusiastic about sharing their new knowledge with their parents at pick-up time, even offering to make a meal when they got home!

The team realised that the best way to ensure the healthy lifestyle skills children were learning at the holiday club had a lasting impact on families, was to be proactive in engaging parents. Jpac began a targeted approach to encourage parents to take part by contacting parents via email/text with healthy recipes and providing the basic food items to encourage participation in the project. The aim was to encourage families to ‘cook from scratch’ as opposed to buying ready meals which whilst often being expensive, contain very low nutritional value.

The Jpac team noticed positive behavioural changes in the children throughout the programme:

• Children showed an interest in joining more sports clubs.
• Making new friends and being more considerate to others.
• Being more capable of organising their own time.

One child, referred to the holiday club by their school, needed respite from their challenging home circumstances. The holiday club gave them the chance to interact with children of a similar age, in a relaxed environment allowing them to feel safe and relaxed. They were also provided access to further support with experienced and qualified practitioners, giving them the space to share their worries and concerns relieving them of the pressure and stress they may feel at home.