A new PRIMA project started in April 2022 under the Grant Agreement 2133: Switching Mediterranean Consumers to Mediterranean Sustainable healthy dietary patterns.
The SWITCHtoHEALTHY project aims to generate a dietary behaviour change by demonstrating and reinforcing the role of the family in promoting a sustainable change towards enhancing the adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern of the family members (adults, adolescents, and children) This will be done by making available to families a combination of hands-on educational material and digital tools and complementing the dietary and lifestyle recommendations with easy-to-eat healthier snacking products.
In this approach, whereas digital interactive tools (SWITCHtoHEALTHY App) will be used by the parents to support them in preparing weekly healthier dietary plans for the main meals for them and their children, the educational material will be used to support families in acquiring healthier habits and to educate children and adolescents. Finally, healthy, and nutritious plant-based snacks will be introduced in the children dietary plans to complement it and to substitute less healthier options in-between meals.
SWITCHtoHEALTHY will result in increasing the adherence to MD by taking an intra-familiar systemic approach taking the family context into account and assess mutual influence of children/adolescents-parents and their roles in healthy eating and lifestyle; developing innovative solutions (plant -based snacks) based on proximity of ingredients, sustainability and healthy consumption to support agri-food producers (especially SMEs) in finding new business opportunities; job creation opportunities and diversification in traditional Mediterranean food sector; supporting food companies in getting through the barriers to market uptake and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage by designing innovative consumer-oriented BMs; raising awareness of the healthy benefits derived from a high adherence to a MD, increasing knowledge on local Med products thus contributing to improve healthy food choices among families; synergising cross-sectorial policy coherence across agriculture, health, education, environment, trade, etc. from local to national and international level and discussing with all actors of society.
You can find more at the project’s press release.