DRESSED up as carrots, apples, cucumbers and more, about 260 students from Holy Saviour School at Greenacre got seriously munching on their favourite vegetables in The Big Vegie Crunch.
At exactly 10am last Thursday, they joined tens of thousands of primary school students across NSW to simultaneously munch on vegies in an attempt to break the Crunch record as part of Vegetable Week (March 2-6).
The record was set in 2018 when 50,260 kids crunched vegetables at the same time. In 2019, 41,538 students crunched together (and a further 14,991 crunched at another time over Vegetable Week).
Holy Saviour Deputy Principal Rachel Bryant said the school was keen to help smash, mash and dice these numbers in 2020.
“Our students were so excited to be taking part,” Ms Bryant said.
“And it’s such a good opportunity to remind them that vegies are delicious and good snack choices. It is also a good reminder for parents, who had to provide all of the produce, to fill their lunch boxes with these healthy snacks.”
Vegetable Week, featuring The Big Vegie Crunch, is a free school-based health promotion event that is funded by NSW Health.
Only around six per cent of Australian children eat enough vegetables and events like this can help to encourage kids to eat more.
Katie Booth from Healthy Kids Association, says events such as The Big Vegie Crunch, can also help to influence the variety and amount of vegies kids choose to eat.
“It is recommended that kids between the ages of four and 12, eat around five serves of vegies each day,” she said.
