Cooking up surprising treats in school to help with healthy eating

Children at St Catherine's School in Hoddesdon are cooking muffins with mashed butternut squash. Credit: ITV News Anglia

Schoolchildren in Hertfordshire are using their "vegetable of the week" to cook up tasty treats with unusual ingredients.

The children from St Catherine's School in Hoddesdon have been making muffins which not only contain cocoa but also butternut squash.

It's the school's vegetable of the week and every day children there learn to cook or eat it in a new way.

  • Watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Elodie Harper

The school is in an area with rising childhood obesity and staff work hard to combat this and promote healthy living.

The school has also embraced ITV's Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign. Teachers say the reward stickers for eating more vegetables are particularly popular.

Tracey Dawson, who works as a dinner lady, goes above and beyond to make fruit and vegetables fun. Everyday she carves out new shapes to make the children smile.

ITV is running a healthy-eating

One-third of primary school kids in Britain are overweight or obese.

Among the solutions which could have a big impact on the problem is convincing kids to eat more vegetables.

But many British kids don’t really like veg and it's estimated that 80% don’t eat enough.

It's thought that 80% of children in Britain don't eat enough vegetables. Credit: ITV News Anglia