Channel 4, ITV and Sky Team Up In £10m TV Campaign To Promote Healthy Eating and Exercise for Children

ITV, Channel 4 and Sky are set to launch an ambitious health and wellbeing initiative to promote the importance of healthy eating and exercise for kids in a new three-year partnership.

With an airtime investment of £10m, the UK’s leading commercial broadcasters aim to reach 90% of UK children and help tackle children’s obesity by showcasing advertising campaigns such as Eat Them To Defeat Them and The Daily Mile.  The three main TV sales groups will launch multiple major on-air campaigns from January 2020 with the aim of helping 10 million kids lead healthier lives.

Across ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, the broadcasters will build on the success of the Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign, which has previously run solely on ITV, with an ambition to change behaviour in the long-term and across all communities in the UK. The new Eat Them To Defeat Them campaign will launch first, in February 2020.

Carolyn McCall, CEO of ITV said: “We know that TV has the power to shape culture and change behaviour and nowhere is that more clear or important than with the success and impact of both The Daily Mile and Eat Them to Defeat Them. We’ve been working more widely with Channel 4 and Sky to highlight what TV advertising does to accelerate brands’ growth, and combining the power of our platforms and programmes enables us to make a significant difference to children’s health.”

Alex Mahon, Chief Executive of Channel 4, said: “Channel 4 has always played an important role in promoting healthy lifestyles to young people through our programming and this is a way to help even more with this vital issue in society. We’re excited to build upon our editorial work with airtime and a powerful TV sales house partnership to continue to inspire and assist young people.”

Stephen van Rooyen, CEO UK & Ireland, Sky, said: “Sky has a long history of encouraging people of all ages to get involved in sport and live healthy lives, from our Sky Sports Scholars to inspiring millions of people to start cycling through Team Sky. We will further build on this work by partnering with ITV and Channel 4 in this campaign.”

Notes to editors
In the last 10 years, the purchasing of vegetables has fallen and the UK is eating the same amount of vegetables as we did in the 1970s. But it’s amongst children that the problem is particularly acute.  Only 1 in 5 primary school aged children eat the recommended portions of vegetables every day, and only 5% of children aged 11-16 years. 
In terms of activity, the picture is poor too.  Less than a quarter of children are meeting the recommendation guidelines of 60 minutes of activity a day.  And the situation is getting worse with activity levels lower than they were 10 years ago. 

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