It should be easy for young people to eat healthily, but it isn’t. The food system is rigged against them. With 3.3 million children overweight in the UK and the worst childhood obesity rates in Western Europe, we needed to act.
The Campaign
High streets, school canteens, and supermarkets are flooded with unhealthy options. Billions is spent on food marketing and advertising to ensure that it’s junk food that grabs the attention of young minds.
Bite Back 2030 is a youth-led campaign calling for the food system to be re-designed to protect the health and futures of millions of children.
They believe that every young person deserves access to healthy, nutritious food — no matter where they live — and fight to make that happen. They want young people to know the truth about how the food system is designed and how it can be redesigned to put their health first.
At the heart of Bite Back 2030 is a Youth Board of passionate teenage activists from across the UK who campaign for healthier food options.
They are building a movement of young people who can influence big business and government to listen and act on a very important topic – the right to good health.
Bite Back 2030 National Youth Board members Christina Adnae and Dev Sharma
We are totally over the moon to be recognised for our work and would like to say a massive thank you for shortlisting us. We hope it will inspire more young people to join Bite Back and campaign for child health to be a priority for our food system.”
Bite Back 2030 Youth Board
Bite Back 2030 National Youth Board members Christina Adnae and Dev Sharma
We are totally over the moon to be recognised for our work and would like to say a massive thank you for shortlisting us. We hope it will inspire more young people to join Bite Back and campaign for child health to be a priority for our food system.”
Bite Back 2030 Youth Board
The Change
In May 2020, a petition launched by Youth Board Co-Chair Christina called for free school meal provision over the holidays and gathered 450,000 signatures, with the media campaign reaching almost 21 million. Youth Board members featured widely in national broadcast media and press.
The Government extended access to free school meal provision over the holidays after Marcus Rashford got involved. In November 2020, it announced measures to provide meals during the holidays to young people entitled to free school meals to the end of 2021.
In 2019, Bite Back released a film showing the influence of junk food advertising and lobbied the Government for a 9pm TV watershed on junk food advertising. After months of campaigning, in July 2020, the Prime Minister announced tough new measures on how and when junk food can be advertised.
Their #Spillthebeans campaign took the Government to task for failing to meet promises to ask all schools to report on their food every year, to enforce school food standards. As a result of Bite Back’s campaign, an inspection programme will be developed to make sure canteens meet school food standards and the Government promised to invest £5 million into training and support for schools.
The Future
Bite Back 2030 will continue to fight for the health and well-being of young people because they believe that every young person deserves access to healthy, nutritious food. They are building a movement of young people to influence big business and government to listen and act on a very important topic – their right to good health.
Who else was involved?
Young people aged 13 – 18 across England contributed their experiences of school food to the #Spillthebeans campaign.
Millions of parents and children shared their stories and those celebrity figures who campaigned.
