the Administrative Sector of the State Administration for Market Regulation中文版
Public Service as a Guardian of Children's Food Safety and Health
Updated:2019-06-06
   A safe food environment and correct understanding of nutrition are essential for the healthy growth of children. On June 5th, the 2019 National Children's Food Safety and Health Protection Campaign was successfully held in Beijing as one of the national key activities of the National Food Safety Publicity Week. The event was guided by the Office of the Food Safety Committee of the State Council and the All-China Women's Federation, and jointly organized by the China Nutritional Health Food Association and the China Children and Teenagers' Fund. Bian Zhenjia, President of the China Nutrition and Health Food Association, and Secretary General Liu Xuecong attended the event.
  
  At the opening of the event, the teachers and students of Shijia Elementary School performed a drama called “The Big Thing”. This is an original food safety theme drama tailored for this event, which explained the concept of “food safety is very important”. The lively and interesting performance received waves of applause. Wang Huan, President of Shijia Education Group, later mentioned: “Shijia Primary School attaches great importance to the construction of food safety and health in the campus. It is hoped that this activity can help to safeguard children’s food safety as well as their healthy growth.”
  
  Fan Xuehui, Deputy Director of the Food Safety Supervision and Management Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said in his speech that regulatory departments would conscientiously implement the documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the regulations of the Three Ministries and Commissions. He added that relevant departments would take the campus food safety and health as the priority and implement the “four most strictness" principle to better protect teachers and students.
  
  The National Children's Food Safety Protection Campaign has been listed as a national-level key activity of the National Food Safety Publicity Week for four consecutive years since 2016. It is oriented towards food safety and focuses on science popularization and education on food safety and health. In 2019, the National Children's Food Safety Protection Campaign was comprehensively upgraded. Before this event, it was officially renamed as the National Children's Food Safety and Health Protection Campaign at the event in order to highlight the importance of health education.
  
  Zhu Xisheng, Secretary General of the China Children's Foundation, mentioned: "The 'health' here does not refer to the general physical condition and neither to the simple nutrition health education in the general sense. This health means satisfaction of the needs for physical and mental health growth, cultivation of scientific diet concepts, reasonable living habits, and even artistic imagination and perfect personality for children and adolescents, to realize the all-round development of human beings. This health is inseparable from food safety."
  
  Liu Xuecong, Secretary General of the China Nutrition and Health Food Association, said: "Children's nutritional health is one of the keys to a healthy life. I hope that everyone can work together to protect children's food safety through public service and better support their healthy growth."
  
  Under the witness of the audience, Fan Xuehui, Deputy Director of the Food Safety Supervision and Management Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Chen Xiurong, former Vice Chairman of the All-China Women's Federation, Secretary of the Secretariat, and Vice Chairman of the China Children's Foundation, Bian Zhenjia, President of the China Nutrition and Health Food Association, Zhu Xisheng, Secretary General of China Children's Foundation, and Liu Xuecong, Secretary General of the China Nutrition and Health Food Association jointly launched the National Children's Food Safety and Health Protection Campaign.
  
  At the event, five experts from different fields delivered wonderful keynote speeches, which attracted hundreds of thousands of online audiences. Zhong Kai, Deputy Director of the Scientific Information Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, used fast-growing chickens and rapid-ripening fruits as examples to introduce the common misunderstandings about food safety. Dr. Yan Zhinong, Executive Director of the Wal-Mart Food Safety Collaboration Center and who is also specialized in food safety, shared the four elements of food safety, namely, cookedness, separation of cooked and uncooked food, timely refrigeration, and personal hygiene. Gu Zhongyi, a member of the Beijing Nutritionist Association and a well-known nutrition expert, delivered a science popularization speech to correct the public's misunderstanding on Children's nutrition, mentioning that “healthy food is not the more the better”. Wang Xufeng, Executive Director of the Capital Nutritional Food Society, believed that “food education changes the future” and shared his view on the necessity of food education to the public.
  
  The media platform provides a new way for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Three children's food safety theme songs, which were jointly created by the China Children's Youth Foundation and Tencent Video, received nearly 90 million clicks since the launch. At this event, they officially launched a science popularization animation called "Rescue Baby" .Yan Bin, Editor of the Tencent Video Children's Channel and Operation Director of the Little Penguin Program, said: "In this era, we should combine the children's favorite IP with new forms of public service, and use Children's language to introduce 'hard science knowledge'."
  
  Other activities of the Campaign included the Children's Food Safety and Health Mobile Experience Camp, as well as an exhibition of award-winning works of two consecutive food safety themed painting competitions, which provided an entertaining learning experience for the children on the scene. By the end of May 2019, the Campaign has been held in 39 cities of18 provinces and direct-administered municipalities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Zhejiang, with 177 experience camp activities. The Campaign distributed 285 school resource packages, 124,856 comic books on food safety, 20,000 copies of education materials on children's healthy growth, 6,500 hands-on learning kits, and involved 3,245 volunteers and nearly 2 million children and families. The event also marked the starting of the Campaign's full-year activities. There will be more interesting and practical science popularization programs held nationwide.