Best Food Friends Pty ltd, is a boutique company in Canberra Australia. In association with the Government Department Of Health ACT, Kulture-break, The Physical Activity Foundation, (active kids challenge) Diabetes ACT, JDRF ACT and the Heart Foundation ACT, the Company is promoting healthy eating through engaging characters that entice young children to eat fruit and vegetables.
Part of the Best Food Friends series is the Take 5 Plus 2 Team. This series of characters comprise of five vegetables and two fruits,(A message that was promoted by the Australian Government ‘Go for 2&5’) encouraging and challenging children to eat more fruit and vegetables every day.
This team of characters are promoted throughout schools in programmes developed for healthy eating by the above associations. Some of the characters have been made into life size and are performing at select schools as part of prizes won by schools participating in the programmes.
The take 5 plus 2 team have their own story books relating to the characters personalities. The aim of the stories is to engage young children in becoming familiar with each character so that the recognition of the character leads to ‘Healthy Eating.’
Best Food Friends evolved from a simple idea Catherine Chapman had to teach her own children to eat healthy. Faced with the threat of Diabetes that was prevalent in her husband’s family she needed to find a way to educate her young children.
Catherine’s children are adults now but still remember the fun stories and characters as they were growing up. They still love them today as adults and believe growing up with the characters in their life was a fun way to learn to eat healthy.
Fast food has replaced healthy eating and it is one of the many culprits that lead to childhood obesity and obesity related diseases. These fun loving characters serve as an excellent tool to help families make better choices and improve their overall health. Best Food Friends is currently expanding. We now have 56 characters teaching children about the wide variety of fruit and vegetables avaialble.
With child obesity, heart disease and diabetes on the rise, it’s up to us as guardians of our children to do everything we can do to stop these diseases that are largely preventable.We can make a difference by educating our children at an early age. Healthy eating is the key to a healthy life!
