What's on Offer? Food for Our Kids in Social Spaces

• Project start date: 1 October 2018
• Project status: Completed
• Project type: Food safety
• Discipline: Nutrition
• Principal researcher/s: Dr Celine Murrin, University College Dublin
• Collaborator/s: Prof Moira Dean, Queens University Belfast

Research objective

• To evaluate the food environments in children’s social spaces on the island of Ireland.
• To establish the attitudes to and perceptions of these environments among key stakeholders – parents of children that regularly attend relevant centres centre managers and catering staff.

Outputs

Research report

• Title: What's on offer?
• Publication date: 14 June 2021
• Summary: The nutritional quality of food available in children’s social and activity centres.
• Findings:

  Audit of centres

  • The study assessed community play centres, commercial play centres and public sports centres.
  • Diet and sugar-sweetened soft drinks, and plain water were available in over 80% of the centres. 
  • Chocolate bars were the most common snack found in 82% of centres, followed by crisps (73%), and baked goods (58%). Fruit or vegetable slices were available in 55% of centres. 
  • If provided, the most common meals were sandwiches/ wraps (71%), cheese toasties (63%) and chicken nuggets and chips (60%). Only 30% of centres had soup or vegetables.
  • Water is always freely available in 72% of centres. 
  • 53% of centres offered brown bread. 
  • Only 3% centres providing meals added salt to chips.
  • Only 30% centres permit customers to bring their own food.
  • Vending machines, found in 55% of centres commonly stocked unflavoured water (89%), sugar-sweetened soft drinks (86%), diet soft drinks (80%), chocolate bars (71%), and crisps. Less than 20% offered healthier snacks. 
  • The relative healthfulness score didn’t significantly differ across type of centres, deprivations index, locations or privately/publicly ownership, with median ranges of 46% (children’s play centres), 48% (sports centres) and 67% (community centres).

  Case study interviews and focus groups 

  • Managers and staff aimed to provide healthy options but identified challenges such as competition and perceived customer demand for unhealthier options but seen small changes, such as oven rather than fried goods, as achievable and desired to improve the healthiness of their offerings.
  • Parents were generally disappointed in the poor quality and over-priced food available, preferring healthier cooking methods and improved marketing of healthier choices. 
  • Other suggestions included smaller portions of adult meals, making healthier options more prominent and using brightly coloured advertising to encourage healthy eating. 

  Review of the evidence 

  • International evidence is limited on the food available in children’s social spaces; but indicates generally unhealthy offerings high in fat and/or salt. 
  • There are some examples of good practice and resources from other countries such as the Australian ‘Fuel to Go & Play’ that could inform practice on the IOI. 
• Recommendations:
  • Food providers have a corporate social responsibility to provide an environment that supports and promotes healthy options for children.
  • Publicly funded centres in NI should be made aware of the Nutritional Standards for Health and Social Care, the Nutritional Standards for District Councils and the plans to implement in the future Nutritional Standards for the Public Sector and similar guidance should be developed in ROI.
  • Standards and guidance in NI and ROI should be promoted to privately owned centres.
  • Promote the use of audit tools and scoring systems to assess food quality in centres.
  • Consider a stepwise approach to making changes e.g. the removal of sugar sweetened beverages from centres. 
  • Implement standards/guidance to coincide with support materials and resources specifically for centre managers and staff.
  • Encourage parents to choose centres with healthier options and advocate for healthier food choices.
  • Talk to other parents about the challenge and to your child about what foods and drinks to choose.
  • Support parents through awareness campaigns and messaging co-created by parents.

Similar research

• Exploring the world of food - the perspective of families with children (2019)
• Investigation into the balance of healthy versus less-healthy food promotions among Republic of Ireland (2016)
• Do nutrient and health claims have an impact on the perceived healthiness and the amount of foods/meals consumed? (2016)
• Good days and bad days - habits of shoppers when they do or don't buy healthy foods (2013)
• Food Marketing and the preschool child (2011)
• Food Values Pilot Programme Evaluation (2010)
• Good days and bad days: an investigation of the habits of shoppers when they do or don't buy healthy foods (2010)