Cashel school leads the way with ‘healthy eating' event

Cashel Community School held their annual ‘Health Week’ from September 30 to October 3.
This whole school initiative endeavours to highlight to students the importance of making healthy food choices for the academic year ahead. A number of informative captions and posters were posted throughout the school.
The sugar and fat content of foods from the top of the food pyramid was a real talking point. There was also a poster indicating the amount of sugar in the most popular fizzy drinks and breakfast cereals that teenagers buy. This initiative was strongly supported by the local community with healthy brown bread, scones, turkey burgers, low fat sausages, vegan options, brown rolls, overnight oats, fruit salads and apples distributed amongst the 860 student cohort. First year home economics students participated in a fruit sculpting competition. Transition years played an integral part in the week helping to coordinate the distribution of healthy food and drinks to the various classes. Sixth year home economics students attended a very informative talk by a Dietician focusing on food fads which are prevalent on social media. This presentation was exceptionally well received by those present. Staff also enjoyed healthy snack throughout the week. There was a very entertaining blind tasting lunch-time event between two members of staff with our caretaker Seamus Murphy taking the honours with full marks.

Pictured below are CCS Staff who took part in the obstacle course race

Staying active was another component of the week. Most junior classes participated in the ‘drop everything and run’ initiative. This involved all junior students running/ walking around the school circumference for a 40 minutes period or exercising within the classroom when the weather was inclement. A lot of broad smiles were spotted as they passed classroom windows. TY classes participated in a boot camp facilitated by a WIT sports graduate. There was also a staff obstacle course which highlighted the highly competitive nature of the staff members of CCS. Students cheered on their teachers with great gusto.
The week proved to be highly successful which impacted on the positivity of the whole school community. It is hoped that students will be more nutritionally and activity aware in their daily lives as a result of the knowledge they gained over the course of the week.