The Root Cause is a national health transformation social enterprise, with Certified Instructors serving their local communities around Australia. We Stand for Children’s Health.
We help children thrive, improve their learning, behaviour and resilience, by lovingly partnering with schools and parents, providing them with ongoing mentoring and resources to help them empower children to make better friends with a wide variety of food. We're here to create lifelong nourishing friendships with food.
Our tailored education programs and partnerships run in schools and grass-roots communities. We use a combination of fun in-person workshops, seminars and training programs pitched at age-appropriate levels for students, parents and teachers. This is supplemented with online resources to continue the education.
Our vision is to create a generation of food-literate children who choose food grown in nature every day; enabling them to be better learners, more successful students, and go on to help build stronger, healthier, more sustainable communities.
At The Root Cause, we recognise in years gone by it took a village to raise a child, and in today's world, it takes strong partnerships at the grass roots level. Our local Certified Instructors help mentor and empower their communities directly, forming strong relationships with key stakeholders and helping create lasting behaviour change and improved health outcomes.
Australian Tour To Transform Children's Health
On 9th October 2015, founder of The Root Cause, Bel Smith and her family set off on a tour of Australia on a mission to Transform Children's Health.
Having personally experienced the impact food had on her depressed husband and anxious daughter’s ability to regulate their mood and participation in day-to-day life, Bel wanted to raise awareness to parents about the impacts food could be having on their family's health.
Over 2.5 years, Bel took her quirky and interactive Mad Food Science Incursion to over 90 schools around the country and hosted pop up community events around the country, empowering over 24,000 children, parents and teachers,
In her travels, Bel discovered a whole lot more about food and the impacts it was having than she ever expected.
Bel discovered from children that processed food had a strangle hold over their hearts and minds of our kids, dominating their school lunchboxes. Many children not being able to differentiate between real fruit and packets labelled with fruit. Some were fearful of fruits and particularly vegetables. But thousands upon thousands of kids LOVED the signature Mad Food Science Green Smoothie, surprising parents and teachers alike.
She heard from parents about how difficult it was to get their kids to eat real food amongst all the marketing that existed for processed food. How their kids seemed to be addicted to these foods. How they felt real food was too expensive. How they had no time or head space to think about food - that in many cases it was an after thought and even a nuisance.
Equally she heard from parents who had seem dramatic improvements in their children's health, behaviour and sleep through making changes to the way their children ate.
Many parents who were focused on their children's health and making the effort to feed their children real food felt they couldn't speak up because they would be seen as being 'that mum' who complains. Their children were often made to feel not normal at school because they were not eating packet food.
She heard from teachers and principals about how food was impacting the classrooms. How they could see a change in children's behaviour, lack of concentration and negative impact on learning. How they felt they couldn't talk to parents about food because they feared reprisal.
Bel heard from School Groundskeepers about the impact school waste was having in the playgrounds at school.
It was a tour that changed thousands of lives, but most of all Bel's. The Australian Tour put a bigger fire in Bel's belly than before. She knew her life's work was to Stand for Children's Health.
When the Australian Tour ceased, Bel set about training a group of passionate mums to be Certified Instructors who could continue to raise awareness about the impacts of food in their communities and schools. Each of these women all had their own lived experiences about food and the impacts it had on their own family. This is why they are so passionate about standing for children's health.
Bel also embarked on researching and writing her now published first book, The Lunchbox Effect. The book set out to raise awareness about what's in common lunchbox foods and how it is impacting children's health, learning and behaviour. The book also shares the stories she discovered in her travels, along with the scientific research she discovered to show the impacts these foods are having on our children's ability to thrive.