Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 368: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the progress made in regard to the commitment given in the Programme for Government to expedite the delivery of a national strategy for tackling obesity. [18146/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Obesity is, I believe, an immensely important issue for the health of our society and requires a multi-faceted response as indicated in the Report of the National Taskforce on Obesity. The recommendations relevant to my Department have been addressed by way of specific healthy food initiatives such as the enhanced promotion of school milk and a new national initiative to promote the consumption by schoolchildren of fruit and vegetables.

The National Food Dude programme, which was launched in 2007 and is managed by Bord Bia, will be implemented in over 600 primary schools this year. The programme has reached more than 100,000 children so far and the response from parents and teachers has been very positive. Over 3 million pieces of fruit and vegetables have been distributed in the measure, which uses repeat tasting, rewards and peer models to effect attitudinal and behavioural change. An amount of €4 million has been allocated for the programme in the Estimates for 2008. The EU Commission is working on proposals for an EU school fruit scheme and will publish these shortly. Ireland has been supportive in the Council of Ministers of an EU initiative in this area. The School Milk Scheme, which was launched in 2006, promotes a positive nutritional message, underlining again the importance of forming and reinforcing healthy eating habits early on.

My Department also funds research under the FIRM programme to establish food consumption databases for the information of the food sector and policy makers in this area. The Scientific Study on Children's Diet by IUNA, the Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance established that intakes of fruit and vegetables, milk and fresh meat by primary schoolchildren were below recommended levels. My Department and the FSAI have also funded an IUNA Teen Study benchmarking the dietary intake of a nationally representative sample of Irish teenagers. Findings were presented at a workshop in Dublin on 24 January. Funding was also awarded in December 2007 under a Food for Health Initiative by my Department and the Health Research Board for further development of food consumption databases.