Give Up Loving Pop (GULP) is a campaign launched in 2015 by Healthy Stadia’s food and nutrition partner – Food Active. GULP aims to raise awareness of the health harms associated with the over-consumption of high-sugar drinks.
The campaign is aimed at children and young people as the main consumers of high-sugar drink, providing them with information and tools to maker healthier choices, such as water and milk. So far GULP has been delivered in over ten local authorities across the North of England and has received national and international recognition for its pioneering work.
People in the UK are consuming too much sugar. On average, children aged 4-10 years old in England are consuming 52.2g grams of sugar per day – that’s 13 sugar cubes! This increases to 17 sugar cubes for 11-18 year olds. And a large proportion of the sugar we are consuming comes from popular soft drinks.
Although many people, including children, are aware of the negative impact that high-sugar drinks can have on their teeth, fewer are aware of the link between over-consumption of high-sugar drinks and long-term conditions such as overweight, obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
The power of football has been used leverage support for local and national programmes supporting a variety of issues such as eradicating racism, tackling unemployment and helping to integrate refugees.
Increasingly, football clubs are being asked to deliver health programmes to tackle a wide range of physical and mental health issues. In response to growing concerns around overweight, obesity and poor oral health in children, Healthy Stadia was commissioned to develop a sugary drinks education programme for Key Stage 2 school children.
Three professional sports clubs were recruited to deliver a four-part PSHE programme to Year 5 children aiming to educate them on the health harms associated with high-sugar drinks, how to identify drinks that are high in sugar and the benefits of staying hydrated for health, educational attainment and sporting performance.
Following a half-day training session held at EFL House, community coaches from Accrington Stanley, Fleetwood Town and Preston North End delivered GULP to over 900 children during the summer 2018 term. The programme included a range of bespoke classroom and playground-based activities that were made available to the clubs via a dedicated web portal.
Following the success of GULP in Lancashire, the KS2 Programme is now available as a package for all interested football, rugby league, rugby union and cricket clubs, consisting of a half-day training session, access to a bespoke GULP resource portal, communications pack and social marketing materials.
If you, one of your team, or even your local commissioners would like to speak to us about how we can develop a successful GULP programme with your club, Healthy Stadia would be more than happy to help clubs find funding and assist in the in the bid writing process by drawing on local and national public health statistics.
Local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), local Public Health teams, the Primary School Sports Premium and Big Lottery Awards for All (small grants) are just a few suggested mechanisms you may wish to explore. For more information about the GULP KS2 programme download our brochure or get in touch by clicking the button below.