Sainsbury's CR Governance Manager, Caroline Miller, talks about how the company makes a positive difference to their community by tackling childhood obesity...

Active Kids is our flagship scheme to encourage healthy eating and active lifestyles amongst children. 

Now in its third year, Active Kids has donated over £52 million of equipment and activity-based experiences to over 40,000 schools, Scouts and Girlguiding groups. 

Registered organisations can redeem their vouchers for sports, activity and cookery equipment, plus activity sessions, such as dance or sports coaching.

In response to feedback, we extended the scheme to out-of-school groups through the Scouts and Girlguides.  We also expanded the range of cookery equipment and outdoor adventure gear available and began offering discounted outdoor activities.

Active Kids is complemented by Active Kids Get Cooking (AKGC).

Now in its sixth year, AKGC is a free online resource for teachers, which addresses the lack of resources for delivering food technology and nutritional elements of the National Curriculum. 

The programme can be incorporated into existing lesson plans and certificates are issued to recognise children’s achievements.  Children are also invited to take part in a challenge to create an exciting and innovative healthy dish.  Shortlisted entries are judged by Jamie Oliver at our annual celebratory event.

MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition… Do it!):

In December 2006 we announced a three-year, £3 million partnership with MEND and the Youth Sport Trust, to roll out the UK’s largest treatment and prevention programme for tackling childhood obesity - 450 MEND programmes, targeting 5,000 families. The programme follows six years of research supported by Sainsbury’s.