According to research 89% of children aren’t eating enough vegetables, so non-for-profit organisation VegPower started an annual campaign to change children’s eating habits. In 2019 VegPower launched the inaugural Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign in partnership with ITV.
VegPower takes the unique approach of agreeing with children that vegetables are evil and taking over the world. The campaign encourages children the only way to beat them is to eat them in an attempt to increase vegetable consumption amongst young people.
With the support of over £12m in advertising led by ITV, Channel Four and Sky the campaign has ‘inspired’ children to adopt vegetable loving habits. The Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign has been supported by celebrities including Amanda Holden, Emma Thompson, Ant & Dec, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tom Jones.
The Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign is aimed at reception aged children through to key stage 2 and runs for several weeks in the Spring focussing on a family favourite vegetable each week. In 2021 the campaign reached half a million children across 1,828 primary schools.
Jenny Scott, headteacher at Ninian Park Primary School in Cardiff, said: “Eat Them to Defeat Them has been a joy to work with here in school, the children are incredibly enthusiastic about it [and] its given us a different approach to how we can incorporate eating and healthy eating into the school curriculum.”
Around 78% of schools said the campaign was more popular than other healthy eating initiatives and 93% said they would welcome the campaign back into their school for 2022. Over three quarters of children (77%) stated the campaign made eating vegetables more fun and 59% claimed they ate more vegetables as a result.
Adrian Le Cuirot, headteacher at St Helen’s Primary School in Lambeth, added: “I think the Eat Them to Defeat Them initiative is a great idea and its packed full of ideas, resources, teaching sequences and activities which are easy to use and easy to follow.”
Schools interested in the 2022 Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign should contact VegPower at: hello@vegpower.org.uk.