Dr. Cliodhna Foley-Nolan:

I thank committee members for their invitation. safefood's remit is about food and health promotion. The quality of children's diets, including in school, has changed in the past 20 or 30 years. Approximately 20% of children's daily calories are from sweets and confectionery. Overweight and obesity are not just a question of inactivity. The general ratio between diet and inactivity is 70:30. Inactivity is very important, but diet is more of a driver. It is a matter of achieving a balance.

We are discussing overweight as much as obesity. We are not referring to the margins. On average, children are heavier now than they were 20 or 30 years ago. In my early career, early onset diabetes and infertility relating to overweight and obesity were unheard of, but we are now seeing these.

safefood has taken a wide approach to schools, which are a key setting. My colleague, Ms Gilligan, will discuss our resources from preschool up to early school leavers, who we consider a particularly vulnerable group, given that they have less education. According to our research, their planning, budgeting and cooking skills are often less developed, perhaps partly because of what they have seen at home, but also from a school perspective.

As to what safefood does with our provisions, we have classroom resources. Ms Gilligan will discuss those further. We have also worked with a number of partners on the school environment. We have run campaigns and had an input into the school food standards that Mr. Macey mentioned. An interesting phenomenon, and one that could be copied in Ireland, is the broad-based food in schools forum in Northern Ireland. We have started discussing this phenomenon with Healthy Ireland and the Department of Health. It is an ongoing policy and implementation group.

Something that was mentioned by Mr. Macey and that Ms Gilligan will refer to again is the influence of marketing and how to develop health and food literacy in children, for example, what is the difference between an ad, which is often subtle and surreptitious, and real information.