Scoring a goal for nutrition’: The FIGC-SINU-Kinder+Sport Project
In 2019, as part of training activities linked to a healthy lifestyle, the Food Education Program began, developed by the Italian Society of Human Nutrition and the Nutrition & Sustainability Department of Ferrero. It joins the technical development project already started in 2015 in collaboration with Kinder+Sport and the Youth and Scholastic Sector of the FIGC, to promote proper nutrition for young people.
The programme, which is part of the local educational development work started by the FIGC in recent years, and which can be consulted on the Ben-Essere Platform (https://www.figc.it/it/giovani), wants to promote an approach to health protection which, through targeted meetings, gives the guidelines for a healthy lifestyle, using sport as an educational tool for the person as a whole. The format has been launched in 2019 in pilot form in three local area centres: Verano Brianza, Bologna Corticella and Casalnuovo di Napoli. Here, kids and families were involved in a series of events until the end of the sporting season. During the meetings, they were able to receive information about the programme, discuss nutrition issues with the staff of experts, and then fill in a questionnaire on what had been discussed. The training programme also involved hundreds of technicians, thousands of children and families through special video tutorials about energy, breakfast, lunch, snacks, proteins, hydration, vitamins, calcium and supplements in a clear and effective way. Nutrition video tutorials are available on the FIGC platform (https://www.figc.it/it/giovani/sviluppo/ben-essere/educazione-alimentare/). Professor Strazzullo, president of SINU, has called this ‘an extremely positive outcome that will be highlighted next November at the National SINU Congress of Genoa when the research data will be presented. So many positive elements to convince FIGC to present the project to UEFA as a best practice also in the international field.’