Thematic week: We love Eating

From 16 to 22 February, EU at Expo 2015 will host on its social media accounts a new thematic week with the title "We Love Eating". We love Eating is an EU-funded pilot project that celebrates healthy food as a delightfully essential part of a healthy lifestyle. It provides tips and activities to be shared with citizens, empowering them to make their lives and communities healthier.

This European initiative takes a fun and upbeat approach to healthy eating. It encourages conscious eating and focuses on the pleasure food brings through tools such as games, recipes, leaflets, posters and the website. It also promotes more physical activity in daily life, offering realistic ways to adopt a healthier and more active lifestyle, from pregnancy to old age.

At the moment, the project is ongoing activities in the 7 cities around Europe: Banská Bystrica, Slovakia;  Bradford, UK; Cluj Napoca, Romania; Deventer, Netherlands; Granollers, Spain; Poznań, Poland; and Roncq, France. Local Promoting Groups (LPGs) in these cities, formed by diverse organisations, put the project into action by organising activities and events in order to teach people about how enjoying healthy food, focusing on the pleasure it brings and the quality of it rather than the quantity. Within the pilot cities, the project works with three main groups: children, pregnant women and older people. A special focus is also placed on reaching representatives of these three target groups from low socio-economic backgrounds.

These are the 6 main messages that We love Eating aims to convey:

• Enjoy shopping for a healthy meal

• Enjoy cooking

• Enjoy eating together

• Enjoy drinking water

• Enjoy colourful fruits & vegetables

• Enjoy physical exercise

In this pilot phase, the impact of the project will be monitored and evaluated by external experts. The conclusions will be disseminated, aiming at influencing health policymakers and promoting future deployment of the tools, after the pilot project ends.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram , and find the visual material related to our thematic week in our Pinterest board "Stats and figures". If you want to know more, visit website of the project and follow the hashtag #WeLoveEating.