It’s hard to believe but The Root Cause Australian Tour to Transform Children’s Health, In Australia, One Lunchbox At A Time has now been on the road for 6 months (actually 7 by the time I got to writing this)! When we look back, we are so excited about what we have achieved so far and are very grateful to each and everyone of you for supporting our mission. From the feedback we’ve received, we know we are making a difference.
What is awesome is you can feel a change is on the way. The number of people who are now talking about real food is increasing. More and more parents are starting to become aware of what’s happened to our food supply. This is great news for the health of our children.
Recapping The Why
The official health stats are undeniable. The 2013 – 2014 Health Study reported 27.4% children aged 5-17 years were overweight or obese. But this statistic is really only a marker of our children’s health. The real issue is the chronic health conditions this statistic will lead our children into. We’re already seeing illnesses such as type 2 diabetes on the increase in children, but other conditions such as heart disease and auto immune disease are also a very real risk.
Have you ever stopped to think about what will happen if children’s health continues to decline in Australia? Here’s a few questions to ponder:
- will our medical system be able to continue to support 3 (or more) out of every 10 children being dependent? Can you imagine the financial cost to our country, if this generation of children grow up requiring more medical support?
- what special considerations will need to be made to the school system if 3 (or more) out of every 10 students in class can’t freely participate in activities due to health issues?
- fast forward 20 years when these children are adults, what will their quality of life be like if they stay on the same path of health?
- fast forward 20 years when these children are adults, will these children be healthy enough to become the forefront of our workforce and keep the Australian economy going? I mean, todays workforce helps fund the benefits the government offers to health, pensioners, others requiring social service. Will this generation be fit and able to do this?
I know these are all big questions and some may seem too far in the future to worry about, but it’s taken us (the human race) a lot of years to build ourselves into this health predicament, it’s going to take some years to reverse it. We need to start NOW. To prevent our children from growing into chronic illness, we need to educate them. We need to help them understand how food can make them feel, the role real food plays in their health and hand in hand with this, how processed (pretend food) can take away from their health.
This is the why for taking our mission on the road. Instead of this current generation of children growing sicker, we want to help educate them to grow healthier because want they learn, they will then take on to the next generation and so on.
Overweight and obese children aged 5-14, by population groups, 2011-12
Australian Tour Commentary
If you asked me to summarise how we’re feeling about our tour 6 months in, here’s what I would say:
As a family, we have finally adjusted to living on the road. We’re really excited about the work we’ve done and the work we have planned, the sights we’ve seen and the sights we have planned. What keeps us going is the feedback we’re receiving from parents and teachers about our program, and the memories we’re creating with our own kids.
I’d be lying if I said this first 6 months has been easy. It certainly hasn’t. We’ve had to learn how to live in a confined space, and I have some days I have had quite a lot of mother guilt about whether we’ve done the right thing for our kids. Only this week (now 7 months in), after listening to parenting guru Maggie Dent be interviewed by Lisa Corduff have I come to realise I need to focus on all the experiences our kids are getting now, that they wouldn’t have if we stayed in our old life.
We’ve also struggled with how to fit it all in – supervising the kids for school, trying to arrange events and school bookings, running classes and events, writing ongoing educational content for The Root Cause and simply being on the road travelling. Some days we’re comfortable with not getting any business work done and other’s we get overwhelmed by it. Our biggest learning is and will continue to be, just going with the flow.
Along with finding our feet as a family living on the road, it really has taken us the same amount of time to find our feet in getting our mission out there far and wide. Our free pop up events have been a huge success, but they stalled when school went back because all the sports and after school activities started. We’re now trialling running these on weekends in collaboration with farmers or growers markets.
It took us a while to really fine tune our message for The Mad Food Science Program™ for schools, but we are ecstatic now.
With the response and the success we have been getting with The Mad Food Science Program™, passionate parents and teachers are now taking our message to school principals, and we’re ecstatic because schools are now seeking us out.
Our parent seminars when run as a companion to The Mad Food Science Program™ at a school are reaching good numbers, but we’re still struggling to reach people outside of the school system. It’s a combination of factors I am sure – time poor parents, after school/work activities and we probably need to find a better way to market these events. We’re working on this. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve also had a few times when Israel has had to give me a good pep talk and remind me to not water down our message. We’ve experienced trolling after a post on Facebook went viral. This was confronting. I hadn’t prepared myself for personal attacks and I really started to doubt what we were doing and myself. Israel had to remind me:
When we painted this bus as a billboard, and took it on the road, we might as well have painted a bullseye on our forehead. Of course, we’ll become a target for some.
Then there has been times when it has been particularly hard to stand up and deliver a message to a group of adults who are clearly overweight themselves, and talk about the weight issues and chronic illness for their children. At times like this, Israel’s pep talk goes something like this:
What would Jamie Oliver do Bel? Would he shrink away from the message?
Of course, this is enough to kick me in the butt. We didn’t sell our house, build our bus into a mobile billboard and pack up our kids on this adventure to shy away from what needs to be said.
Praise
Boy, this is a tough one to isolate what praise to include in this blog post because we’re receiving so much incredible feedback, They show we are transforming children’s health – conversations are happening at home and parents are making a stand for their children’s health. I have included just a handful here, but I will find some time soon to update our Australian Tour page with a more comprehensive list of the praise we’ve received.
“Hi Bel, My name is Liam and i came to Mad food science at Intereach in Deniliquin today. I liked it so much. This afternoon i had capsicum for afternoon tea and it will help my heart and memory. Thank You.”
“My boys have not stopped talking about what they learnt today, what they ate at afternoon tea and dinner time and what parts of the body it was helping, looking at the packets of food in our pantry and counting the ingredients and best of all, saying I can’t say yuck until I have tasted it. Thank you so much. When something comes from Mum or Dad, they don’t really take it on board, but coming from you, they have certainly listened and are putting it into practice.”
“Thank you for an informative session this afternoon. Its great to leave there not feeling guilty for what we pack our kids lunchboxes but rather be inspired and know that it is the small changes that are going to form the foundation for our childrens future health. Thank you for coming to Guyra.”
“Oh my gosh I feel sick ? I made time this morning to read about your mission as it popped up on my feed so much and as such just downloaded the Chemical Maze app. I just took a quick look at a couple of things from the pantry that I give our 22 month old as “quick, healthy snacks” when we are out and about (rice crackers and dried apricot squares) and both contain chemicals that made my tummy flip! If you are holding anymore online sessions I would be keen to be involved. Righto, off to clean out the pantry…”
“As a grandparent attending today’s presentation I must say that I was very impressed. Your passion and knowledge that you passed on to the children and parents was inspirational. We all know that we need to be more aware of what children eat and to hear your studies on nutrition it all sounds so simple to make changes. Our grandchildren were very excited with your visit today. They hadn’t stopped telling us all about it and suggesting changes. Thankyou. All the best to your family as you travel and inspire other families.”
“I thought today’s presentation to Transition, Kinder, 1 and 2 was very informative and educational. I am a Gran now and have been blessed with a position as Teachers Aid at St Mary of the Angels where I love playing Gran to many lovely children. It is always great to be part of their educational journey and your insightful tips were obviously taken to heart as l saw many of the children checking their lunch boxes for lists of ingredients. I am both gluten and dairy intolerant so I found your Rainbow informative too. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks so much Bel for the talk on Wednesday..and my girls haven’t stopped talking about you today. They’ve asked me to buy spinach for smoothies! You have made a great impact on this family for sure!”
Tour Stats
Our Mission is to Transform Children’s Health In Australia, One Lunchbox At A Time. Our Vision is for real food to become normal in a child’s lunchbox, and that this current generation of children will be choose real food over packaged food because they know it nourishes their bodies, and will be street smart about processed packaged food.
Our Major Goals for the tour are to:
- raise awareness about the state of children’s health in Australia;
- start conversations at home between children and parents about real food;
- provide participating schools with tools to continue educating their students in real food; and
- get parents to commit to being a stand for our children’s health
Our Key Performance Indicators for the tour are to:
- reach 50 schools across Australia; and
- directly impact 100,000 children and parents.
If this was a balanced scorecard (BS Bingo), then we would be on track for the first indicator, but need to focus on the second. Let’s have a look at the where we are at.
Number of Schools
- Schools – 11
- Pre-Schools – 11
- After School/Vacation Care or Community Organisations – 4
Based on these stats, we are well on our way to achieving our target.
Pop Up Awareness Events
- We have hosted 6 of free pop up events so far, reaching 806 people.
Number of Contacts
These are broken into direct conversations and estimated impact. Direct conversations are the number of people we directly talk to. Estimated impact are the people we estimate we have touched based on the direct conversations we’ve had. The estimation is based on ABS stats of the average household consisting of 4 people.
- Direct Conversations – 4,452
- Estimated impact – 17,808
The estimated impact is a difficult one to deduce as it does not take into account how these people will go on to talk to other people and become a stand for health in their area. It also doesn’t take into account other people who are already following our mission and making changes in their lives. Nor does it include anyone who hears us on radio, or sees us in the paper or on TV, or even those who see Kaley and just walk up and say “what’s this all about then”.
Based on these stats, we definitely need to find a way to get to larger numbers of people. This means we need to look at running bigger community based events as well as reaching children and families through the school system. Any ideas welcome!
Other Vital Stats
- Number of KM’s travelled – 12,400
- Amount spent on diesel – $5,893.56 approx
- Litres of green smoothie made for classes, seminars and pop up events – 222
- Number of nights on the road so far – 203
- Camp site fees – $1,215 (we aim to free camp as much as we can)
- Number of new tyres – 3
- Number of new radiator header tanks – 3
- Cost of mechanical repairs – $4,000
- Number of pairs of new thongs required due to broken pluggers – 5
- Memories created – Priceless, invaluable
Our Hopes For The Tour
Our hopes are quite simple. To continue making an impact on the lives of families; for schools all over Australia to see value in educating our kids about real and processed food; and to give our children adventures they will never forget because they are our world.
How You Can Help
Our big goal is to directly impact 100,000 people on Australian Tour. You can help us achieve our mission by spreading the word about Australian Tour, and if you’d like to see us do something in your region, please fill in the how we can serve you form and we’ll contact you.
Of course you can also be a help by committing to taking a stand for children’s health. Print off our Transforming Children’s Health Manifesto and keep it in a place where you’ll see it everyday as a reminder.
A Special Thanks
Of course, all of this could not have been achieved without you, and the support of our National Partners.
- Worldwide Printing Solutions – this incredible design and printing company are instrumental in our mission to Transform Children’s Health, In Australia. They graciously provide support by ensuring every child we educate receives a comprehensive handout to take home to their parents. They also provide me with my aprons, tablecloths and more. You can read more about their contribution here. So when you next need design or printing help, contact a Worldwide Printing Solutions office and mention The Root Cause.
- Scott Sign – what can I say but Scott’s brilliance turned our big green box (what our bus builders called it) into our mobile billboard which is now generating conversations everywhere we go.
- R & R Bus and Leisure Hire – this amazing team took our bus on when we were broken not beaten, and turned the mess into the home we now love and are enjoying.
We also have a wonderful sponsor in Audio-Technica Australia – who gifted us an amazing wireless microphone and receiver which allows me to run my classes and seminars without damaging my voice and also an incredible microphone to allow us to record videos with great sound for our eCourses and podcasts.
You may also like to read our 2015 Wrap Up Post – we had been on the road for 3 months then.