Children’s Food Ambassador Programme

As an intentional parent of a fantastic 14 year old and an amazing 11 year old, my top priority has been my children’s wellbeing and good health hence my interest and desire to join the children Food Programme and to become an Ambassador. As a graduate of Mass Communication and Business with HRM and also an experienced social care worker, I have developed a passion for healthy living and general wellbeing of our children and as an ambassador of the Children Food Programme, I strongly believe with other active parents/ carers, we can team up, share ideas and then create an avenue to advocate for change,

I am a Health Improvement Lead in the Children & Families Team at Public Health, Suffolk County Council and I am currently working in Public Health and taking the lead in Children's Healthy weight focusing on a whole system approach across Suffolk . Throughout my career I have worked in early years and community development and have always valued giving children the best start in life; recognising where access is not equal and how to change this. As a mum of three (9, 12 and 14), I am deeply invested in children's food.  I enjoy cooking and helping my children explore new foods.  I am really interested in the ingredients we find in shop bought foods and would like to support changes in manufacturing to raise the quality and labelling of cheaper foods, to better understand what we are eating . I am also aware of environmental challenges, such as limited access to supermarkets and the flood of fast foods on my children’s route to school. As an ambassador, I want to improve children’s access to affordable, nutritious food and push for changes in national policy.

I’m a private chef, cookery tutor and food writer, and I’m delighted to be joining the Sustain Children’s Food Ambassador Programme. My love of food began in Cilento, a UNESCO heritage park in Southern Italy, and for many years now Buckinghamshire has been home to me and my wonderful family. I’m passionate about sharing over two decades of experience in hospitality, especially teaching the joy of cooking and the simple beauty of fresh, seasonal ingredients. Recently, I had the privilege of teaching homeschooled children about the science of breadmaking for Chemistry Week, and it was a joy to see their amazement at how flour is made and transformed into flatbreads. You may recognise me from competing on MasterChef UK in 2021 or from receiving the Inspiring Culinary Generations award. However, my most important role is being a mum to two teenage daughters, one of whom is neurodiverse. Their reluctance to eat school dinners showed me that change is needed. I hope that by voicing our experiences, we can work together to create a better food system for our children and generations to come.

As a full-time firefighter I try to stay in good condition, and following a family health issue, I began, along with my wife, to take an interest in nutrition and its role in protecting us. This led to the realisation of how poorly our society deals with food, specifically sugars and processed foods. Inspired by our 10 year old daughter we have lobbied the local council to try to make improvements regarding how the education sector present food, and they are looking into the feasibility of making changes to certain approaches. I hope that through lobbying and sharing of individual experiences we can inspire improvements to the nutritional field that is available to children in this country.

"As well as being the mother of two boys and a girl I work in marketing for a food redistribution charity, run a vegan food business and have two recipe blogs, sneakyveg.com and cookveggielicious.com. I also teach both adults and children how to cook and work with my local authority to teach food waste reduction and cooking classes in local primary schools. I became a children's food ambassador due to my experiences with picky eating and navigating the world of ultra-processed toddler snacks. Now, as my children grow older, new challenges like the pressure to buy energy drinks and poor secondary school lunch options have emerged. I hope to see clearer guidelines on the nutritional value of children's food, a ban on energy drinks for children and teenagers, and significant improvements in school food provision."

I am the parent of two teenagers. I have always worked in the food industry and have been involved in community projects for several years. I am also a school food governor to help improve school food. I have always been passionate about improving food choices for everyone and joined the local Food Partnership to be involved in this. When my children joined secondary school I was shocked at the food choices available and brought this to the parent council and the school. I'm hoping through this programme we can raise awareness and concern for the poor quality food our children are eating for it to be finally taken seriously and changes being made to policies to make healthy food more accessible to families.

Nutrition is something that I have always been passionate about. Making changes to our children's food systems and laws is fundamental if we want to improve our young people's mental and physical health. I want to help the fight against holding the government and the food industry accountable for their lack of food standards and targeted marketing. I believe that all our children deserve the right to have access to healthy, nutritious food, that making these choices should be easy, so that we can bring up a generations of happy, healthy children. I have 12 years of experience working in education within mental health settings and background in fitness instructing, counselling sport and exercise science . I set up Food and Mood Education to highlight to the younger generation about the impacts of food on their mental health. With a 5 year old son, this work feels even more crucial to change the future of our food system. I am proud to be an ambassador for the children's food campaign.

London–based mum to a spirited 5-year-old. With a background in photographic production and a BSc (Hons) in Nutritional Science, I now work for a children’s food charity, helping to improve food provisions and education in schools. Personal parental experiences - from managing food allergies to navigating selective eating and super market meltdowns - have deepened my understanding of the everyday struggles families face. Feeding children nutritious food is increasingly challenging and costly. We are competing with a world full of temptation everywhere and targeted marketing, it is a constant battle! I wish to champion stricter government regulations on the food industry and more focus and support on food provisions and education in schools, to help children develop key life skills.

I am a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Agri-Food Systems at Bournemouth University and currently seconded to the Wales Centre for Public Policy as an ESRC Policy Innovation Fellow. I am the parent of a 9-year-old neurodiverse child and 3-year-old daughter. The cost of food, clever marketing of energy drinks and the many other factors that are out of our control as parents have made educating children about healthy eating more difficult. I see the Children's Ambassador Programme as a way to share my experiences of guiding two children with very different personalities, and advocate alongside other parents and caregivers for change. Our children deserve better, and I hope that through the Programme we can push for changes in the policy-design mechanism and achieve accountability and transparency within the UK's food system.

I am co-founder of Munch CIC, where we develop and deliver sociable and interactive food education sessions around food labelling, fibre, five-a-day, a towards plant-based ethos and sustainable nutrition. As parents, all we want is for our children to be happy and healthy, to be able to thrive and succeed, we do everything we can to achieve this but often it just feels impossible. All my knowledge and professional practice as a registered nutritionist (RNutr) went out the window when my son was about 18 months old and became a “fussy eater,” I had no idea how to make him eat healthy food and it was very distressing. I became a Children’s Food Ambassador because I am passionate about children’s health and giving all our children the best possible start in life.

My first experience of taking action on food came from working with my children’s school and nursery to improve the meals they were being served. The healthy pescetarian diet we eat at home was initially a challenge for both settings, and I’m proud of the positive changes that followed. But parents shouldn’t have to fight these battles. School food standards should be far higher and consistently enforced everywhere. Growing up in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, my earliest memories are of eating fresh papaya, soursop and guava straight from our garden, alongside the hard work of keeping chickens and growing corn. We complained then, not realising the richness of that experience. A childhood filled with good food, whatever your circumstances, should be a right, not a privilege. Today, as a British parent, even buying yoghurt means navigating aisles packed with unhealthy, brightly marketed alternatives. Children are surrounded by ultra-processed food. I believe it doesn’t have to be this way, which is why I became a Children’s Food Campaign Ambassador.

I am a parent to a lively 6 month old girl and an energetic 3-year-old boy. Due to my public/global health background, I have always been interested in food and nutrition, yet the challenge of feeding a young children still took me by surprise. The food environment, the cost of food, the clever marketing and the many other factors that are out of our control as parents have at times made parenting more difficult than it should be. I see the Children's Ambassador Programme as a way to share my experiences and advocate alongside other parents and caregivers for change. Our children deserve better, and I hope that through the Programme we can push for the policy changes needed so that eating healthier is cheaper, easier and accessible for all families.  

I am a registered dental hygienist, accredited coach, and mum to a pre-school child, committed to improving children’s health through stronger, healthier food environments.

 I have seen first-hand how high-sugar and ultra-processed foods  that is widely available, heavily marketed, and normalised in everyday settings are impacting children’s oral and general health. Too often, these impacts are treated as inevitable, rather than shaped by the environments around children and families. This has strengthened my commitment to prevention, education, and early intervention.

Becoming a parent has deepened my understanding of how confusing food labelling, misleading marketing, and unhealthy norms in early years and school settings make healthy choices harder. As a Children’s Food Ambassador, I bring professional expertise and lived experience to advocate for clearer information, stronger early years support, and healthier, fairer food systems for all families.

I am a single parent to 7 years old boy. I have been always in hospitality industry and always have interest in food. Becoming mum showed me how challenging can be putting healthy and nutritious food on the table. I pursue my passion for public health and the last year I graduated from BSc Human Nutrition. Now, I worked as a chef manager in education, and I see how food provided by school is so important for children, as sometimes is only one, hot meal per day. I decided to be ambassador as I believe that food provided in school should be better quality and more accessible. I believe that cost of good food should be lower.

As a mum of three boys, I'm always competing with the demands of a busy life and providing my family with healthy nutritious meals. I love to cook and what I feed my family is really important to me. I find the most challenging part is One of my twins has ADHD and Autism, which brings about additional challenges around food. I would like to see schools and local high street environment offer a wider choice of affordable unprocessed healthy food options to help me feed my family when we are outside of the home. With a career that began as a children’s dental nurse and oral health promoter at King's College NHS Trust, where I witnessed the adverse effects of modern diets on children's health, I now work in public health in my local borough, maintaining a strong drive to create a healthier food environment for all. As a proud Ambassador, I aim to work with Sustain to drive government action for bold societal changes, ensuring the next generation enjoys better health and a longer, healthier life.