We know that fuelling children with the appropriate foods helps support their growth and development.

There is a growing body of research showing that what children eat not only affects their physical health but also their mood, mental health and learning.

The research suggests that eating a healthy and nutritious diet can improve mental health, enhance cognitive skills like concentration and memory and improve academic performance.

Children should be eating plenty of nutritious, minimally processed foods from the five food groups:

• fruit
• vegetables and legumes/beans
• grains (cereal foods)
• lean meat and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, and legumes/beans
• milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or their alternatives

Consuming too many nutritionally-poor foods and drinks (high in added fats, sugars and salt) such as lollies, chips and fried foods has been linked to emotional and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. In fact, young people that have the unhealthiest diets are nearly 80% more likely to have depression than those with the healthiest diets.

It’s never too late to encourage healthier eating habits – childhood and adolescence is a key time to build lifelong habits and learn how to enjoy healthy eating.

Healthy school lunch recipes. All recipes have been developed to support the relevant healthy eating guidelines.