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Eating Healthy the Easy Way: Salad from the Concrete Mixer

On World Children’s Day on September 20, 2016, the initiative “SMS. Be smart. Join in. Be fit." of the German Diabetes Center, a DZD partner, will focus on healthy eating and exercise in a cooking show for children. Around 400 primary school children have been invited to come to the largest lecture hall of the University of Düsseldorf where TV chef and food expert Sebastian Lege will show how to cook the easy way. The event is supported by the SMS partner Borussia Düsseldorf, which seeks to counteract obesity and subsequent diseases in childhood.

[Translate to Englisch:] Sebastian Lege „Die Tricks der Lebensmittelindustrie“. Quelle: Willi Weber / ZDF

Mix couscous salad in a concrete mixer? Make iced tea in a bathtub? Using cooking utensils from the hardware store, product developer Sebastian Lege seeks to motivate children to do the cooking by themselves. “For me it is a matter close to my heart to teach children the importance of high-quality food and that many of the expensive products  on the supermarket shelves do not measure up to this,” said Sebastian Lege, explaining his commitment. Together with Oliver Bendt, an Antenne Düsseldorf reporter, Lege will present three typical foods and discuss and develop ideas with the school children about how to prepare foods at home in an easy and healthier way.

Children participating in the SMS initiative make couscous salad in a concrete mixer. Source: SMS

The event will also focus on exercise. The table tennis champion Borussia Düsseldorf has invited primary school children to a table tennis match. As part of its integration project “Bunt geht’s rund”, Borussia Düsseldorf drives to various institutions with its mobile table tennis equipment. The intention of the project is to provide people in need of assistance – both young and old – with the opportunity to exercise more and to learn to play table tennis. In addition to this project, Borussia Düsseldorf has invited the 400 SMS children to the Bundesliga home match on September 25, 2016. The tickets will be presented by Jo Pörsch, managing director of Borussia Düsseldorf. “We want to acquaint people throughout Düsseldorf with our great sport. As our successful paralympics team impressively demonstrated in Rio, table tennis enables inclusion more than hardly any other sport,“ said Pörsch. SMS project leader Professor Karsten Müssig added: “With these two activities, we want to raise awareness among primary school children of the importance of a balanced diet and adequate exercise and show them how much fun this can be.”

The initiative led by Professor Müssig, “SMS. Be smart. Join in. Be fit." seeks to make children in Düsseldorf and Cologne primary schools more aware of the benefits of a healthy diet and more exercise. The participating children complete the “aid” nutrition pilot license program in cooperation with the Educational Center for Dietary Assistants of the Kaiserswerther Diakonie and take part in the exercise program for primary schools “Fitness for Kids” developed by sports scientist Prof. Dr. Kerstin Ketelhut. The two health insurance companies IKK classic and KKH, the organization diabetesDE - German Diabetes Aid, the Sports Department of Düsseldorf and other renowned partners and prominent people support the project and provide the participating school children with additional attractive venues for learning outside of school. The patron of the initiative is Thomas Geisel, mayor of the state capital Düsseldorf.

Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2016,
Time: 11:00 am to 12:00 noon
Venue: Lecture Hall 3A (Building 23.01), Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf

For more information, please visit: www.sms-mach-mit.de