Healthy Eating & Sustainable Food
Eating a healthy, balanced diet can help to prevent diet-related illness and will give you the energy and nutrients you need to keep active and maintain a healthy weight.
Eating well helps to reduce the risk of certain conditions including heart disease, stroke, some cancers, diabetes and osteoporosis. Ultimately, healthy eating helps you to feel great, have more energy and stabilises your mood.
Healthy Weight Healthy Wales is the national 10-year strategy to reduce and prevent obesity in Wales. The Cardiff and Vale Local Public Health Team delivers on this through its Move More, Eat Well strategic action plan as well as a variety of actions focussed on encouraging healthy food choices.
Read about Move More, Eat Well action plan here.
Throughout our life, there are key things we can all do to help us to age well and maintain the best possible health, such as eating a healthy and well-balanced diet.
Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team are working on initiatives to help the people of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan improve their food choices, as well as ensuring they have access to healthier food, including:
- Developing sustainable food partnerships that support local food projects to grow and provide better access to food for those on a low income.
- Working with the local and national government to ensure access to healthy food is a priority for all.
- Working in partnership with the Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Dietetics team to encourage access to nutrition education.
- Working with school and pre-school settings to provide healthy eating information and resources.
As part of the Move More Eat Well partnership plan, we are also:
- Promoting schemes that support families on a low income to afford to buy healthier food.
- Working with public sector organisations to introduce healthy food standards, so that when you are at your place of work or out and about socially, you can make healthy choices more easily.
Current project initiatives
Food Sense Wales
Food Sense Wales aims to influence and impact how food is produced and consumed in Wales, ensuring that sustainable food, farming and fisheries are at the heart of a just, connected and prosperous food system.
Founded in 2018, Food Sense Wales was established to drive forward a cross-sector approach to the food system in Wales and is a fund within the Cardiff and Vale Health Charity, hosted by the Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team.
Food Sense Wales works with communities, organisations, policymakers and Government across Wales to create a food and farming system that is good for people and good for the planet. In order to achieve this, Food Sense Wales believes that the environment; health and wellbeing; social justice, and the economy should be integrated into all policy thinking in Wales.
This ‘food in all policies’ approach can be achieved through research, cross sector collaboration and by mobilising a Wales Good Food Movement, increasing public awareness of food issues and encouraging widespread participation in food-related activity. Food Sense Wales is helping to develop this Good Food Movement by delivering a number of food-related programmes across Wales – many as part of UK partnerships.
Food Cardiff
Food Cardiff is a city-wide partnership of individuals and organisations. It acts as a hub for connecting the people and projects working to promote healthy, environmentally sustainable and ethical food across the city; it acts as a voice for wider change. In 2021, Cardiff achieved Silver Sustainable Food Places status, becoming the first place in Wales and one of only six places in the UK to achieve the prestigious accolade. Food Cardiff has developed 5 food goals: a healthy Cardiff, an environmentally sustainable Cardiff, an empowering food movement, a thriving local food economy, a fair and connected food system.
Everybody in Cardiff can join the movement by ‘Make a Pledge’ and taking action to help Cardiff achieve Gold Sustainable Food Places status by the year 2024.
Food Vale
Food Vale is a sustainable food partnership which aims to improve the access, affordability and availability of good food across the Vale of Glamorgan by encouraging local residents to eat well. We are a partnership with members from a variety of local organisations and food businesses, working together to connect and inspire our communities, using food to bring people together and change lives.
We have three key aims – to provide a good meal for everybody every day, support local food businesses to thrive, and to connect local and global food opportunities.
We have produced an action plan which outlines key activities for the coming year
Current projects include:
- Llantwit Major Food Access project.
- Sustainable Food Places.
- Cardiff & Vale Public Procurement Project.
Healthy Eating Standards for Hospital Restaurant and Retail Outlets
Being a healthy weight has become one of the most effective ways to reduce the risk of long-term health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers.
However, in our current environment it is difficult to achieve this as the food around us often prioritises convenience over health, and can be high in fat, sugar and salt. As a result, we are eating less fruit and vegetables, oily fish and dietary fibre, the foods that help us to be healthy.
In Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, we work closely with the University Health Board to identify healthier choices which are more accessible and sustainable, providing a healthy environment to staff, patients and visitors. We are implementing a set of standards which are carefully monitored to ensure we make the Healthy Choice, the Easy Choice (video link below).
Advice
For advice on how to eat well, whether it’s to maintain good health or manage a condition, visit Cardiff and Vale University Health Board digital resource, designed to help you and your family live well.
Visit the Keeping Me Well website here.
Our dieticians have produced an Eatwell Guide Video for anyone looking for general advice on how to eat a healthy balanced diet.
Watch the Eating Well - Keeping Me Well video here.
If you would like ideas on healthier meals you can make at home, there are some tasty healthy recipe suggestions below.
Get ideas about healthier recipes here.
If you are recovering from illness, more information Eating for Recovery - Keeping Me Well can be found here.
With over 60% of people from Cardiff and Vale above a healthy weight, it is important that support is provided to help people to eat well and manage a healthier weight, avoiding ill health. As well as our projects, we work with a range of partners from Cardiff and Vale UHB who also offer services to address this.
If you would like to find out more about the services to support people to become a healthier weight, you can visit the Weight Management - Keeping Me Well website here.
If you are interested in learning more about nutrition and how to maintain a health balanced diet, there are a range of courses delivered by the local dietetic teams to support people to improve health through healthy eating.
Nutrition Skills for Life Public Courses – Nutrition Skills for Life® (includes Foodwise)
You can also find out more about the action we are taking in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan to encourage everyone to Move More Eat Well.
Contact details
For further information, please get in touch with the team working on healthy eating and sustainable food using the contact details below:
Rhianon Urquhart, Healthy Eating Lead: Rhianon.Urquhart@wales.nhs.uk
Louise Denham, Food Vale: Louise.Denham@wales.nhs.uk
Pearl Costello, Food Cardiff: Pearl.Costello@wales.nhs.uk
Helen Griffith, Healthy Eating Standards for Hospital Restaurant and Retail Outlets: Helen.Griffith5@wales.nhs.uk
Chloe Barrell, Healthy Eating Standards for Hospital Restaurant and Retail Outlets: Chloe.Barrell@wales.nhs.uk
Food Sense Wales: foodsensewales@wales.nhs.uk