Catering staff at Hull Royal Infirmary have revamped the menus for the children’s wards in an effort to tackle the city’s increasing child obesity problem and encourage children to eat more fruit and vegetables. Staff believe they are perfectly placed to plug the healthy eating message while youngsters are in hospital, and are essentially a captive audience.
Although the hospital has always offered healthy options, the new menus include a wider variety of fruit and vegetables, and traditional meals like roast turkey. Chips, burgers and pizza were on the menu daily, but have been reduced to once or twice a week.
Mandy Leaf, general manager for Sodexho, the catering and support service company that operates the hospital’s restaurants, said: “The menus have been a great hit so far, with excellent feedback from children and parents. We hope we can push on from here and continue to promote healthy eating.”
The menus, which offer choices such as Italian meatballs in tomato sauce, cottage pie and fruit, are part of a citywide drive to combat child obesity and educate people on healthy eating.
