Accolades and Government Policies

“Their foresight and trail blazing provides a leading example of contemporary Public Health strategy in action. Purely Nutrition has and continues to model new ways of working in partnership with commercial sponsors which may act as an exemplar for ‘Big Society’ engagement – Royal Society of Public Health, 2011

With global and national non-communicable disease (NCD) rates rising rapidly, alongside a poor global economy resulting in austerity measures and stretched national budgets, the issue of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Public Health has never been more relevant. PPPs aim to unite representatives from civil society, the corporate sector, NGOs and institutions in a common goal; to add shared value to a project that will ultimately lead to benefits for both society and to the corporations involved. Multi-stakeholder approaches are widely recognised to be necessary in order to tackle obesity epidemics on a large scale [1] [2]. Public-private collaborations are also considered to be more likely to increase the scope of financial and human resources that could be mobilised to serve public health programmes’ objectives [3].

At PhunkyFoods we believe in offering schools a sustainable solution to delivering credible and reliable healthy eating and physical activity messages to children in the classroom. In order to achieve this in a cost-effective manner for schools we approach companies to subsidise the cost of our programme via their Corporate Responsibility (CR) and/or ESG budgets.

The Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan: Chapter 2 states that schools have a fundamental role in equipping children with the knowledge they need to make healthy choices for themselves and create healthy environments for children to learn and play (1).

The 2020 PHE report “Learning from local authorities with downward trends in childhood obesity” (2) identified that almost all of the LAs experiencing a downward trend in childhood obesity saw schools and partnerships with schools as an essential element of their approach to obesity. Published guidance on promoting healthy weight in children, young people and families states that there is evidence and consensus that a number of opportunities for action in primary schools could contribute to the reduction of childhood obesity levels (3). The opportunities for action listed by PHE are all deliverable through the PhunkyFoods programme, but the PhunkyFoods Programme goes one step further because we ACTIVELY support schools to engage with and meet these opportunities for action.

In our experience there are a few incredible schools who are already striving to meet these opportunities without support, but these schools are the exception and not the norm. Most schools simply do not have the resource to commit to meeting any of these opportunities without significant support and input from external sources. And that is where we can help … our local support workers offer the in-school support and guidance necessary to make these opportunities a reality. They train, motivate and, most importantly, they deliver to ensure that becoming a supportive learning environment for health is not just aspirational, but is achievable.

“Wiltshire Public Health have been working with Purely Nutrition over the last two years to engage and implement their Phunky Foods programme to selected schools in Wiltshire. The Phunky Foods programme offers a range of delivery programmes to suit individual schools and provide them with a personable and tailored approach to address their own challenges. The Purely Nutrition team have been fantastic in establishing relationships with schools in Wiltshire, to gain initial engagement, trust and as a result we have seen great success and implementation from schools, in their whole school approach to healthier behaviours. The team at Purely Nutrition are passionate in making a difference and this has been reflected in the success stories from our schools engaged. We are planning our third year of implementation and the Purely Nutrition team have been fantastic at adapting their delivery approaches to meet the needs of our schools and communities in order for us to make a difference and provide staff in schools with the tools, knowledge and confidence to make a sustainable lasting difference and support Wiltshire children to lead healthier and active lives.”

Maddy Bune. Public Health Practitioner – Physical Activity and Healthy Behaviours.

Parent engagement in schools is defined as parents and school staff working together to support and improve the learning, development, and health of children and adolescents. Research shows that parent engagement in schools is closely linked to better student behaviour, higher academic achievement, and enhanced social skills (4). Parent engagement also makes it more likely that children and adolescents will avoid unhealthy behaviours and engage in healthier behaviours (5,6).

Parent engagement fits with our mission to help primary schools to deliver a whole-school approach to healthy lifestyles and to engage with all pupils, and their families, in promoting tangible health behaviour changes in a fun, lively and positive manner.

Through our work with parents we are also able to incorporate all the essential core components of lifestyle weight management programmes as identified by NICE guidance (PH47). This can be done as part of a Universal Tier 1 preventative approach to weight management, or as part of a more targeted Tier 2 weight management provision in high priority schools/ families.

(1) HM Government (2018) Childhood Obesity: a plan for action Chapter 2.

(2) Public Health England (2020) Learning from local authorities with downward trends in childhood obesity

(3) Public Health England (2018) Promoting Healthy Weight in children, young people and families: A resource to support local authorities 

(4) Jeynes, WH. (2007) The relationship between parental involvement and urban secondary school student academic achievement: a meta-analysis. Urban Education; 42: 82-110

(5) Blom-Hoffman, J. et al. (2008) Family involvement in School-Based Health Promotion: Bringing Nutrition Information Home. School Psych Rev December 1; 37(4): 567-577

(6) Jorgenson. et al. (2016) Parental involvement and association with adolescents’ fruit and vegetable intake at follow-up: Process evaluation results from the multi-component school-based BOOST intervention. Int J Behav Nutr & Phys Act; 13: 112

Accolades