NHS app making it easier to make healthier swaps
NHS app making it easier to make healthier swaps January saw the launch of the new NHS Food Scanner App, as part of its ‘Better Health’ children’s nutrition campaign.
The App is the ideal hack for families, helping them to swap food and drink that are higher in sugar, saturated fat, and salt to healthier alternatives. It comes on the back of a record rise in obesity amongst young people over the last school year, with latest data highlighting that one in four children of reception school age are overweight or obese; this rises to four in ten in Year 6 (ages 10-11). 
Children aged four to ten years eat on average nearly 50g of free sugars per day, over twice the recommended maximum amount. This can be hidden in soft drinks, snacks and processed foods, making a heavy contribution to the 500 excess calories children with an unhealthy weight consume every day. Swapping out these high sugar items can be one of the easiest ways to achieve a healthier weight. With a simple scan of the barcodes, families can see how much sugar, saturated fat, and salt is in everyday food and drinks.
The app suggests healthier swaps, by encouraging users to choose “Good Choice” products - there are thousands of food and drink products you can swap to.
Dr Christopher Chiswell, Consultant in Public Health, said: “Our kids might seem fine on the outside but too much sugar and saturated fat can lead to the build-up of harmful fat on the inside that we can’t see. “This fat around their vital organs can cause serious disease in the future.
"Too much salt can raise our blood pressure putting us at risk of getting heart disease or having a stroke. Too much sugar can also cause tooth decay.”
The app will also link you through to many other resources to help improve your family’s diet, including:
- Sorting games to identify what foods in your cupboard are healthy and unhealthy
- How to use the eat well plate to think about what you’re eating through the day
- Colouring, reading and singing challenges. The NHS Food Scanner App provides parents with an easy hack to improve their children’s health in 2022. Download the free App today from the App Store or Google Play or search ‘NHS Food Scanner’.