Seoul City: "'Kids, Let's Eat Fruit' Project Shows Clear Improvement in Children's Dietary Habits"

Cooperating with Private Sector and Autonomous Districts, Supporting 7,000 Children with Twice-Weekly Fruit and Monthly Nutrition Education Starting This May

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 31st, Seoul City announced that a survey of 7,000 children who received seasonal fruit and nutrition education through the Seoul City project ‘Yaedeul-a Gwail Meokja’ (Kids, Let's Eat Fruit) showed improvements in dietary habits such as bowel regularity, nutrition label awareness, and fruit intake rates.

Seoul City's ‘Yaedeul-a Gwail Meokja’ is a pioneering public-private partnership social contribution project that provides monthly nutrition education and biweekly fruit to children in vulnerable groups, mainly through local children's centers, to promote healthy eating habits.

After a pilot project in 2011, since 2013, Seoul City has been implementing the project in cooperation with Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation, Seoul Cheonggwa, Nonghyup Economic Holdings Garak Market, Joongang Cheonggwa, Donghwa Cheonggwa, Hanguk Cheonggwa, Dae-a Cheonggwa, Hope Sharing Market, and 25 districts.

This year, since May, fruit supply and nutrition education have been provided to 240 local children's centers (7,000 children). To prevent COVID-19, when centers were not operating, children were supported to take fruit prepared at the centers home to eat.

According to pre- and post-surveys of participating children, the percentage of children who ‘regularly have bowel movements’ increased by 3.8 percentage points (74.1% → 77.9%), and those who ate fruit ‘daily’ in the past week increased by 2.1 percentage points (24.7% → 26.8%). 62.5% of participating children responded that they ‘like fruit more than before,’ and nutrition label awareness rose from 50.5% to 63.0%, indicating a significant effect of nutrition education.

Parents also reported changes, with 66.4% saying they felt improvements in their children's nutritional knowledge after participating in the project, showing that both children and parents experienced the project's benefits. Additionally, 92.6% of participating children's parents and 95.0% of children's institution staff responded that the ‘Yaedeul-a Gwail Meokja’ project is ‘continuously necessary.’

Seoul City plans to continue cooperating with Seoul Cheonggwa, Nonghyup Economic Holdings Garak Market, Joongang Cheonggwa, Donghwa Cheonggwa, Hanguk Cheonggwa, Dae-a Cheonggwa, Hope Sharing Market, and Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation, which actively participated in this project, and to strengthen participation from social contribution organizations to expand the project.

Park Yumi, Director of the Seoul City Citizen Health Bureau, said, “Through Seoul City's ‘Yaedeul-a Gwail Meokja’ project, our children are developing the habit of eating seasonal fruit as snacks, which will have a lifelong positive impact on their health. We will further strengthen public-private cooperation and continuously expand support so that more children can benefit.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.