Our Balanced Nutrition Education Project, launched 11 years ago, has become a flagship project for our foundation. Initially we partnered with the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF), taking materials from their successful ‘Food - a fact of life’ schools’ education programme and adapting it for a Turkish audience. The programme has then been implemented in schools in cooperation with the Repuclic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education, Directorate General for Basic Education. It is currently active in 25 provinces throughout Türkiye and has now reached an estimated over 7 million students, parents and teachers with educational and entertaining materials. The primary goal is to emphasize the importance of balanced healthy eating combined with physical activity.
A team of trainers provides essential input to teachers in each province and the programme is then rolled out in individual schools. It runs for 38 weeks with two hours of input per week. Also included is a 10 minute exercise routine before classes begin. Children from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade are now included. The curriculum is constantly being upgraded based on feedback and new ideas. Balanced nutrition teaching resources are available in Turkish on a dedicated website.*
In 2021 the Sabri Ülker Foundation teamed up with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to educate children in Türkiye on food waste. A range of teaching manuals entitled ‘Do Good: Save Food!’ were distributed to participants in the Balanced Nutrition Education Programme https://www.fao.org/save-food/news-and-multimedia/news/news-details/en/c/1375112/.
We have on two occasions evaluated the impact of the intervention on several parameters associated with health and wellbeing. The first of these was in 2014 when we teamed up with the universities of Ege, Erciyes and Marmara to evaluate 618 primary school 2nd to 4th grade participants in the programme. The results were encouraging in that students total energy intakes decreased, physical activity levels increased, age-based BMI dropped in the case of female students and the frequency of obesity decreased for both male and female students.
** https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0899900718307135?via%3Dihub
In 2019, we undertook a second evaluation of the impact of the Balanced Nutrition Education Project. The project, entitled ‘Balanced Nutrition Consumption and Frequency Research II (2018-2019)’ was carried out in pilot schools in Istanbul, Antalya and Gaziantep, together with the nutrition and Dietetics Departments of Marmara, Akdeniz and Sanko Universities. A main focus was a study of the adaptation of primary school children to a Mediterranean Diet. This was evaluated for the first time in Türkiye, and it was determined that 3 out of every 10 children adapted well to a Mediterranean Diet. It t was also determined that children who complied well with the Mediterranean diet were also more physically active than those who didn’t.
In 2022 we began research in Adana to evaluate the impact of the programme. Sadly, this had to be put on hold due to the tragic earthquake that devastated the city in February, 2023.
We also received the "Sustainability Communication" award at the Sustainable Business Awards, acknowledging the success of our communication activities associated with the Balanced Nutrition Education Project.
