About us
Generation Pep is a non-profit organisation working to give children and young people the opportunity and will to live active and healthy lives. We are part of the Swedish Crown Princess Couple's Foundation and our efforts are led by our operations manager, former elite athlete Carolina Klüft.
Our organisation has existed since 2016, when it was founded through an initiative by the Swedish Crown Princess Couple. Together with actors from all of society, businesses, organisations, government authorities, and private individuals, we want to ensure that all children, regardless of where they live and who they are, remain as healthy as possible, which is also one of the tenants of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Why we chose to work with children and young people's health?
Most children and young people in today’s Sweden get too little exercise and have poor eating habits. There are also major differences between children growing up under different circumstances. The lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating habits increases the risk of depression, type 2 diabetes, sleeping disruptions and cardiovascular diseases to name a few. In order to turn these developments around, we want to create a popular movement promoting more physical activity, better eating habits, and an increasingly equal health situation for children and young people.
How we operate
Generation Pep is working to engage society as a whole in the health of children and young people. Science has shown that individual actors cannot lead efforts for change, all of society needs to become involved. This is why Generation Pep has chosen to target several areas of society with our work, engaging with everything from preschools, child welfare centres, and schools, to businesses, organisations/associations, as well as municipalities and regions. Our work is funded by the contributions we receive from businesses and foundations, in addition to project grants for targeted initiatives. You can read more about how we operate here (in Swedish).
We seriously want to be able to create the change needed in order to give all children and young people the opportunity and will to live an active and healthy life.
Tips: We are currently actively working with both schools and preschools. If you want to know more about these activities, email info@generationpep.se or read here (in Swedish)
Children need daily physical activity
Children need to be active and physically engaged for at least 60 minutes every day, preferably to the point that their heart rate goes up and they work up a sweat. However, this does not need to be 60 consecutive minutes. It could be walking or riding their bike to school, playing football during recess, dancing around the house at home, or building an outdoor obstacle course together. What is important is that the child is physically active every day.
However, in this day and age, far too few children get a sufficient amount of daily exercise. Many reports show that as few as two out of ten children get 60 minutes of physical activity every day, and that children and adults spend an average of nine hours of their waking time sitting still.
Children need to eat more vegetables, fruits, and berries
When it comes to our diet, we know that children and young people eat too little of what the body needs to feel healthy, and too much of what makes us feel less healthy. Both children and adults need to improve their eating habits. Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to food.
Eat more:
- Vegetables, fruits, and berries
- Legumes
- Whole grain products (such as whole grain rice, whole grain pasta, brown bread)
- Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (such as olive oil, rapeseed oil, nuts, and seeds)
- Fish and shellfish
Eat less:
- Sugar (candy, cookies, soda, lemonade)
- Meat (mainly beef, pork, veal, or game)
- Saturated fats (such as fat dairy products, for example cream, yoghurt, cheese and butter, sausage, and bacon)
Below is an illustration showing things to keep in mind regarding food. The foods at the bottom of the pyramids are those you should eat the most of, and the ones at the top are those you should eat least of. It can be difficult to determine the contents of any given product. That is why the Keyhole was created. This symbol is used by the Swedish National Food Agency to make it easier to choose healthy food.
The Keyhole can be found on a variety of food products, and it signals that this specific product contains less and/or more healthy fats, less sugar, less salt, more fibre, and whole grain. So look for the Keyhole when you go shopping!
Healthy food and physical activity make us feel good!
Children need daily exercise and better food habits. Today, only 14 per cent of all children and young people have diets that are good for their bodies and get a sufficient amount of exercise.
There are many benefits to eating healthy and getting more exercise. For example, did you know:
- Physical activity improves concentration
- Physical activity improves academic performance
- Exercise makes us happier
- Healthy food and physical activity help build resistance to a number of illnesses
- Healthy food makes us more energetic, alert and improves our stamina
How you can become involved
We want society as a whole to get involved in creating better conditions for children and young people to live healthy lives. Here is a list of some of the things you can do as a private individual, parent, or an adult in general. If you are also active in an association/organisation, you can become part of our network. More information available here (in Swedish).
Add more exercise to your everyday life
An easy way off adding more exercise to your everyday life is to play, bike to school or work and chose the stairs instead of the lift. Everyday chores such as cleaning and emptying the dishwasher are also good ways of adding physical activity as you go about your day.
Break the habit of sitting still
A small break for moving around makes all the difference for people both old and young. Here are a few tips on small activity breaks you can try at home.
Become active in a non-profit cause
Associations are often looking for new people to become involved on a non-profit basis, so look into whether a local association is looking for new active leaders or helpful parents!
Eat more fruit and vegetables
A simple way of getting more fruits and veggies into your diet is to make them more available for when you become peckish, for example by leaving a bowl of vegetables cut into sticks on the dinner table before dinner.
Review your screen habits
Neither adults nor children benefit from too much screen time. The WHO recommends that children between ages 2–4 spend no more than one hour sitting still in front of a screen per day. Children younger than 7 should not spend more than two hours per day stationary in front of a screen.
Cook together
Cooking together can encourage your child to try new flavours, and at a certain age, this can give the children what they need to prepare simple, and healthy meals by themselves.