Inspiring Children to Lead the Way on Responsible Eating

Since Isaac Sam Camilleri took part in a European Commission supported project to educate children on responsible food consumption, he and many other kids in Malta, grow, forage or help prepare their own nutritious school lunches. They’re among tens of thousands of kids across Europe taking sustainable living from theory to reality.



By looking at the food on his lunch plate, Isaac has examined how food consumption choices impact not just his health, but the health of the planet. Through food, he’s even begun to examine international trade systems, consider global inequality and examine Europe’s place in the world. And, like most other children who took part in the nine-country project, called ‘Eat Responsibly’, what he has learned encouraged has him and his family to make some positive changes.

“At our school canteen there used to be loads of food waste but now we waste hardly anything,” said Isaac, who is 14 and comes from the Mediterranean island nation of Malta. “Our canteen is healthy, meat free and people enjoy the food. We still make things that people love - like pizza - only now it tastes even better!”

Isaac also has greater appreciation of the value of food – not just in euros and cents - but the environmental costs that go into the production of meat, grains, fruit and vegetables. 

“Minimising food waste is important - there are people who don’t have enough to eat,” said Isaac, understanding that while people in less developed countries want to food, “it’s not right that we [in Europe] should be throwing food away.”

Eat Responsibly is part of the European Commission’s Development Education and Awareness Raising Programme, which supports projects that engage the European Union public in worldwide issues of social, economic and environmental development. 

By directly educating almost 180,000 school children in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania  Slovakia and Slovenia, organisers of Eat Responsibly have encouraged countless families and communities to change their food consumption habits and make consumer choices that have less of a burden on the environment.

What’s more, Eat Responsibly, which is headed by lead partner Glopolis, based in Czechia, has encouraged children like Isaac to look at some of the biggest challenges that face our planet today – issues like climate change, deforestation, inequality and poverty and consider how the world could be different. 

“What we brought [to children] through the project was the holistic view, to enable them to understand, through food, all the challenges that humanity has to face,” said Aurele Destree who has headed the food security programme at Glopolis since 2007 and teaches food security at the Czech University of Life Science in Prague.

“After taking part in this project children really understand why, when we say:  ‘eat organic, seasonal, local’ - they understand on a deep level the reasons why this is so important,” added Ms Destree. “It’s not about nationalistic pride that we want to eat local. It’s about understanding all the environmental and global implications of those choices.”

To do this, the Eat Responsibly team spent a great deal of time developing teaching aids and resources that show how interconnected our food consumption choices are with global issues.

For example, teachers are encouraged with their pupils to examine the massive growth in palm oil production since the 1960s and palm oil’s now widespread use in the food industry, where it is found in about 50% of all processed foods. Pupils confront the negative health implications for those who eat palm oil products, encouraging many students to shun fast food and processed foods.

But perhaps more importantly for their understanding of our inter-connected global world, students also look at the impact large-scale palm oil production is having on the environment and communities in producer countries like Indonesia and Malaysia – issues like deforestation, land grabbing and loss of livelihood.

In the second half of the project, the efforts of the Eat Responsibly project really began to bear fruit. Based on this resulting enthusiasm of the participating teachers and pupils, the topic of 'Eating Responsibly' has been adopted as a theme for activities by EcoSchool International, an network of 51,000 schools in 67 countries globally focusing on environmental education.

"When the project began, we could not have dared to dream that we could have such an impact on this network,"said Tereza Cajkova, International Coordinator of Eat Responsibly. "We knew that the topic we work on makes a lot of sense, but elsewhere there was resistance and concern that its global dimension was just too complex. However, our activities disproved this and really demonstrated how meaningful and energising it can be for teachers to work on responsible food consumption."

In each European country where Eat Responsibly operates, teachers adapted their message to local concerns and context. So in Malta, where obesity is a fast growing problem, including among children, healthy eating was a key concern of the project, which involved 49 schools - almost a third of all schools in Malta.

“In schools, before we stared the project, there was no awareness about the palm oil issue,” said Cynthia Caruana, Project Manager for Eat Responsibly in Malta, who explains whole communities are paying more attention to what’s in their diet and are particularly aware about palm oil.

“More than just the children have been impacted by this project – whole families have been reached. If there are other events and there is catering for the event now parents and teachers will ask things like – does this have palm oil?” said Ms Caruana, adding:  “They’re much more aware.”

From the eastern borders of the European Union in Romania, mother and member of her son’s parent association, Adriana-Loredana Horia, also took part in the Eat Responsibly project. And, she says, she and her family are much more food aware as a result.

“After what he learned in his activities at school my son went to the family car and he threw out any bottle containing sugary soda drink,” said Ms Horia who has modified her shopping habits as a result. “We just don’t buy them anymore.”

DISCLAIMER: This article has been written by the DEAR Support Team to provide information about a project that receives European Commission support via the DEAR Programme.  The article should not be interpreted as the official view of the Commission, or any other organisation.