Just like that school holidays are over and another year of school commences. Are you ready? Hit reply and let me know what year your children are in this year and how best I can support you in 2023.
This year seems bigger than ever for us. Indrani is in year 12, and it's only a matter of 4 months until she will be able to drive a vehicle on her own ). Rilien starting year 7 - he's no longer a little boy.
It's given me lots to think about on both a personal level and a business level.
On a personal level, in a matter of maybe 7 or 8 years, Israel and I are likely to be empty nesters. What do we want our life to look like? Israel and I have been having lots of discussions. Converting a van and travelling features in there.
On a business level, I've been running The Root Cause for 10 years this year. I can tell you it's been simultaneously rewarding and bloody hard work swimming against the tide all these years.
In the early days, I was often considered a nut job. I've been trolled heavily. Called all sorts of names. Been told my children must have a horrible lives because of the choices I've made around food. And more.
Over the school holidays, I pondered have I got what it takes to keep Standing for Children's Health. To keep pushing for change. To keep raising awareness.
What I have found most challenging is that despite giving it my all, the statistics for children's health have just kept getting worse over this time. And the cold hard reality is this:
As I was meditated and journaled on this, I had to remind myself of our achievements here at The Root Cause
Our programs have reached over 200 schools across Australia;
We've empowered over 50,000 children, parents and teachers at our in person events;
Trained up a group of incredible Certified Instructors, who get to run their own business around their family, whilst having an impact on children's health in their community;
Reached thousands and thousands of people in the social media world. They've learnt from my messages. I've had viral posts where hundreds of thousands of people have seen them;
Published a book to tell the story of the impact of lunchbox foods (The Lunchbox Effect);
Helped thousands of parents set up systems to make packing real food lunchboxes easy;
Given evidence to parliamentary committees;
Helped hundreds and hundreds of families to have fun with food in their own homes. I've helped them empower their kids to make better food choices and learn to participate in what it takes to run a household, particularly cooking for the family.
This year, I'm starting to partner with businesses so their employees and customers can learn more about food and how to transition to healthier food habits.
As I reflected on this, I realised we are all up against a $2b snack food industry that puts profits before health.
That even though the health statistics are getting worse, they could have been even more worse had I not been doing the work we've been doing here at The Root Cause.
So here I am at the 10 year mark of Standing for Children's Health, with only 7 or 8 years until we're likely to be empty nesters, and I've chosen that I do have what it takes to keep going.
There is nothing else I am passionate enough to spend my days doing. I am grateful you're here in this community, giving me the strength and courage to keep going.
In this weeks newsletter, I am doing what I do best. Raising awareness. As its lunchbox packing season, please take a look at these images of what's in common lunchbox foods.
If you no longer rely on packet foods, please take these images as a way of acknowledging yourself for what you've achieved. To give you the courage to keep Standing for your Children's Health, and the health of the planet.
If you still rely on packaged foods, please do not look backwards and beat yourself up. Instead look forwards - use these images to give you the strength to start transitioning your family away from these foods now. Of course, if you need help, then I'm your gal - be sure to join me in the Thermo Lunchbox Reset (for thermo machine owners) or the Lunchbox Reset Programs.
Note: these images do not share the impact these foods are also having on the environment. Packet food = landfill. Lunchboxes create a hideous amount of waste.
Please note - when I was researching for my book The Lunchbox Effect, we researched over 500 packet foods which are commonly found in supermarkets and marketed as lunchbox foods. The above images are a small selection, but most have similar profiles to those shown here.
It's pretty shocking to think our food standards allow these kinds of foods to be concocted and worse that our Government policies allow these foods to be marketed directly to our kids.
May I please ask you to share is information widely. The more people who become aware, the better the chance we have to start to reverse the rising trend in children's health issues. To make it easy to share, I have included all these images on this page here - https://therootcause.com.au/standing-for-childrens-health-share-able/.