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Veggies4myheart – Project of the Year in Community Nutrition and Public Health

by Veggies News

Viver Saudável Magazine was the promoter of the Viver Saudável Awards Gala, which took place on November 25th at Casino Espinho. Nutrition projects were celebrated, and the importance of nutrition and the role of professionals as promoters of a healthier society were recognized.

This 2nd edition distinguished the ciTechCare Veggies4myHeart project by Researcher and Professor Cátia Pontes as Project of the Year in the Community Nutrition and Public Health category.

The Veggies4myHeart project consists of a food education project that aims to promote the consumption and knowledge of vegetables in preschool children (between 3 and 6 years old) through teaching materials, namely, a digital game that is a joint initiative of ciTechCare and CIIC, from the Polytechnic of Leiria.

Researchers Marlene Lages and Sara Dias, students of the Digital Games and Multimedia courses and the Degree in Dietetics and Nutrition, Eduarda Abrantes, Gustavo Reis and Ricardo Antunes from CIIC, Sophie Bucher Della Torre, and some crucial funders such as “Challenges in Cardiology” and Leiria City Council also “believed in the idea,” which “brought us here and allowed us to go even further than we ever thought”, stated Cátia Pontes.

The winning project is innovative because it uses educational materials created and validated by nutritionists, which was one of the shortcomings of other similar projects.

Categories such as “Nutritionist of the Year,” “Clinical Nutrition,” and “Collective Food and Restoration” were also awarded at this celebration.

The Healthy Living Award 2022 is an initiative promoted by FRESENIUS KABI, Matinal Cottage, and supported by the Portuguese Nutrition Association (APN), the Portuguese Association of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition (APNEP), the Federation of Portuguese Agro-Food Industries (FIPA) and the Association National Association of Nutrition Students (ANEN).

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1st International Congress on Food, Nutrition & Public Health (ICFNH)

by Veggies News

The Veggies4myHeart Team was present at the first edition of the International Congress on Food, Nutrition & Public Health (ICFNH), which took place on November 17th at the premises of the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) in Lisbon.

Professor Cátia Pontes presented the oral communication “Can a digital game promote vegetable consumption? – parents’ perception of a food and nutrition education tool”, which aimed to expose parents’ perception of the impact of the digital game “Veggies4myHeart” on promoting the consumption of vegetables.

In the 2021/22 school year, 210 children from 8 kindergartens in Leiria participated in the project. The digital game “Veggies4myHeart” was the pedagogical tool in the five food and nutrition education (FNE) sessions. After the intervention, parents were asked to voluntarily complete a questionnaire to monitor their perception of vegetable consumption and the impact of the digital game as an EAN pedagogical tool.

The sample for this work included 32 parents who responded to the online questionnaire. Of these, 20 reported that their child did not change their vegetable consumption after the Veggies4myHeart project intervention. The relationship between the frequency with which children mentioned the project at home and their consumption of vegetables was analyzed. It was possible to observe that 22 children mentioned the project frequently, and 11 increased their consumption of vegetables.

Regarding parents’ perception of digital games as FNE pedagogical tools, 25 parents considered digital games beneficial. Parents of children who participated in the Veggies4myHeart project did not feel their children changed their vegetable consumption after participating. However, everyone found the game helpful for FNE. Finally, the importance of involving children’s families in the project and understanding the barriers to the consumption of vegetables by preschool children in their homes was highlighted.

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XXI Food and Nutrition Congress

by Veggies News

The Veggies4myHeart Project participated in the XXI Food and Nutrition Congress at the Lisbon Congress Center on May 26th and 27th, 2022. Trainee Nutritionist Neuza Barros presented the Oral Communication entitled “Veggies4myHeart – Use of a Digital Game to promote knowledge and Consumption of vegetables in Preschool Children in the Municipality of Leiria”.

The presentation highlighted the Veggies4myHeart Project, which uses a digital game to promote knowledge and consumption of vegetables among preschool children.

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Culinary Workshop – Veggies4myHeart

by Veggies News

On Saturday, February 26th, the Culinary Workshop of the Veggies4MyHeart project took place at the School of Health Sciences – Polytechnic of Leiria, with the special participation of Chef and Nutritionist Rui Lopes and the project team.

Veggies4myHeart, a ciTechCare project in the 2021/2022 Edition, is led by Cátia Pontes and promoted by Intern Nutritionists Neuza Barros and Patrícia Ferreira.

The project aims to promote food and nutritional literacy and reinforce the consumption of vegetables in preschool age.

This year, the project was carried out in partnership with the PIICIE program (Integrated and Innovative Plan to Combat School Retraction) in 8 kindergartens in the municipality of Leiria, where children played the digital game Veggies4myHeart and tasted the five vegetables from this project.

The culmination of this edition was the Culinary Workshop, in which several dishes were prepared, the main ingredients of which were the five vegetables covered by the project: tomato, red cabbage, cucumber, carrot, and lettuce. There was the presence of children from several kindergartens in the district of Leiria participating in the current edition of the project and their families.

It was a fun, educational, sharing, and delicious morning!