Move more and eat well
Keep Moving
Children and young people aged 5 to 18 need on average at least 60 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a day across the week to develop movement skills, muscles, and bones.
What counts as a moderate activity?
Moderate-intensity activities will raise your heart rate, make you breathe faster, and feel warmer. One way to tell if you’re walking at a moderate intensity level is if you can still talk, but not sing.
Try to reduce the time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity.
Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food
Empowering Barnet’s communities with good food for good health: Ministry of Food cookery courses offer invaluable skills for young people and parents in Barnet
This summer, local young people and parents completed two…
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Celebrating 10 years of tackling health inequalities in Barnet's schools
On Wednesday 5 July, pupils and staff from schools and early years settings across Barnet gathered at Hendon Town Hall for this year’s Healthy Schools London and Healthy Early Years London awards ceremony and 10-year anniversary celebration event…
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Fit and Active Barnet
Get active and give it a go - visit the Fit and Active Barnet Hub for tips to help you keep active in Barnet and physical activity opportunities for all ages and abilities.
Healthy Schools London
A lot of your time as a child (about 190 days on average) is spent in school and therefore, schools can play an important role in supporting you and your family live healthily. Barnet supports health and wellbeing in schools through programmes looking at food you eat such as Sugar Smart and SMILE to keeping active like Golden Kilometre and Daily Mile.
Our programme for Healthy Early Years London and Healthy Schools London takes a whole school approach to supporting wellbeing of everyone at school.
Go Bean!
We're championing the humble bean in Barnet to improve our health, lighten the load on our pockets and reduce our carbon footprints. Check out the facts, tasty recipes, and more about beans.
Eatwell Guide
The Eatwell Guide was created by the government to help summarise what makes up a healthy balanced diet. The Guide does not apply to children under the age of 2 because they have different nutritional needs. Between the ages of 2 and 5, children should gradually move to eat the same foods as the rest of the family in the proportions shown in the Eatwell Guide.
Local Support
There are a variety of local offers in the borough to support children & young people with healthy eating and maintaining a healthy weight.
VegPower
VegPower is a movement that uses marketing techniques to encourage children to eat more vegetables.
The Healthier Families Campaign
The NHS Healthier Families campaign has fun ideas to help you keep moving at home and outdoors. The campaign creates fun ideas like Disney 10-minute shake-ups- helpful to keep you moving during the school holidays.
The campaign also has plenty of recipes and healthy swap ideas to help you eat healthily. There is even a NHS Food Scanner app you can download which is designed to find healthier food options easier and know the sugar content in food and drink.
Active Travel
This can be walking or cycling to the shops, and you can also try taking the stairs instead of the escalator or lift. Also, try walking, cycling or scooting to school? Not only will it help you to be more physically active, but it will also help to reduce air pollution due to fewer cars on the road and support anti-idling. Anti-idling is about encouraging people to turn off their car engines when their vehicle is stationary, and it is safe to do.
Parks and Open Spaces
If you live or go to school in Barnet you and your family can visit one of our many parks and open spaces. These include Walking, running and cycling trails.
BACE Holidays
BACE (Barnet, Active, Creative and Engaging) Holidays offers children and young people who receive free school meals to access enriching activities and a healthy lunch over the holiday periods.
Eat Well
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of maintaining good health and your overall feeling of wellness. This involves eating a wide variety of foods from different food groups in the right proportions and consuming the right amount of food and drink to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.
Top tips
-Eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetable daily.
-Choose unsaturated oils and spreads and eat them in small amounts.
-Include protein in your diet.
-Have some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks) in your diet.
-Drink plenty of fluids (6-8 glasses a day) Water and lower-fat milk are always the best choices for drinks. Water contains no sugar and milk contains calcium for strong bodies and as part of a balanced diet.
Other useful support
British Nutrition Foundation- Useful information on nutrition for all the family.
Play safely
Play is a natural part of childhood and contributes to supporting a child’s physical and emotional well-being, growth, learning and development. Playing helps a child make sense of the world around them, working through emotions, experiences and building supportive relationships.
Useful Links:
Look out for local events in Barnet for your family:
- Library events | Barnet Council
- Creative Communities | Barnet Council
- Children's Centres in Barnet | Barnet Council
- Fit & Active Barnet Hub (better.org.uk)
Ideas for play for all your family:
- Baby and toddler play ideas - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
- Resources for early years, primary and secondary schools. | National Literacy Trust
- Tate Kids
Here is some advice on how to stay safe when at play:
