I don't really know how to explain it so... just watch this.
Eat Them To Defeat Them is a marketing and advertising campaign devised by ITV and VegPower - a community interest company established by the Food Foundation, Jamie Oliver, Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall and Baroness Boycott. The campaign attempts to push-back on 'junk-food' advertising aimed at kids, and to increase the number and variety of vegetables that kids are eating. Throughout the campaign materials, they frequently cite the statistic that 29% of children eat less than one portion of vegetables per day (they don't focus on fruit). This is the basis of their rationale for the campaign, along with some anti-fat rhetoric, because clearly kids should only eat vegetables so they don't get fat (!!!).
The whole shtick with Eat Them is that vegetables are evil; they want to take over the world, and until now adults have been keeping them at bay. But now they need kids' help to ward off these zombie-like nightmares. You have to eat them to defeat them.
As well as the TV ad above, Eat Them has a large presence in UK primary schools, reportedly reaching 1.5 million children through in-school activities, vegetable tastings, stickers, and progress charts.
The hope from the VegPower folks, is that the school-based messaging, combined with TV ads reach parents and change their purchasing and cooking behaviour, which in turn leads to kids eating more veg.
And in 2023, VegPower commissioned an impact report to determine whether they actually changed children's eating habits. They surveyed 3000 parents and found that:
after 2 years 44% of parents report a positive long-term effect on the number or variety of vegetables their child eats. This increased to 53% with three or more years participating in the campaign.
Now I can't find the original survey results, and we don't know much about the demographics of the respondents or how they selected their sample, but the report is overwhelmingly positive.
But something that struck me when reading the report, is the complete absence of kids' experiences (remember parents were completing the survey on behalf of the kids, as far as I can tell). And like, no self-respecting researcher would only do a quant study. Pffft. So, let's do a little research of our own. I want to hear from you.
(I'm not going to share my thoughts/feelings/opinions right now (although, I have many). This is just a vibe check.)
Parents/carers: have your kids taken part in the Eat Them To Defeat Them school activities? Have they seen the advert on TV, or the marketing campaign more broadly? What did they think? Did they have much of an opinion? Did it change how they behaved around vegetables? Did they seem to like it, were they indifferent, or, were they freaked out by the zombie veg? Ask them when they get home today!
Teachers/school caterers/ and school support staff: I'm also super keen to hear from you - how did this campaign land for you? How about the kids in your care? Do you have any other tools/resources for teaching kids about nutrition that you can compare it against?
Any nutritionists/dietitians or other HCPs: how did this land for you? How do you feel about this approach to teaching kids to eat veg? Does it support a long-term positive relationship to veg? Is it pressure? Is it increasing external or internal motivation?
And everyone else: If you don't have kids or aren't in the UK, what's your impression of this?
Clearly, I'm working up to doing a bigger piece of writing about this, but I want to hear from y'all first.
I'm not going to do links this week, just because I feel like there's a lot to think about here already. I'll do a bigger roundup next week instead.
ICYMI: Your Kids' Appetite Must Not Exceed 100 Calories
