Promoting Well Being

The Community Cooking Skills Programme was launched in October 2009 and followed on from the previous success of Cook It, the community nutrition education programme which was running in the Southern area from April 2004 until March 2008.

One of the key challenges is to empower people in the community, particularly those most at risk of poor health and diet patterns, to eat more healthily and to provide an environment for healthy eating in the home.

The Fit Futures taskforce, established by the Ministerial Group on Public Health (MGPH) has clearly noted that poor nutrition together with increasingly sedentary lifestyles are posing very real problems and risks for families and children in Northern Ireland (DHSSPS, 2006)

The strategic direction supports the further development of local initiatives to prevent obesity in adults and children, and the need to ensure they are integrated with approaches to increase physical activity and education.

A number of programmes are currently running in the Southern area which addresses issues of nutrition for health in the community.  The Community Cooking Skills Programme provides training in nutrition and cooking skills in order to increase an awareness of healthy eating and healthy cooking.