Arçelik

A worldwide survey conducted by Beko highlights the interest gap between children’s approach to healthy eating vs. their approach to football. The survey reveals significant global differences in children’s understanding of healthy eating. Only one fifth of children identified the daily fruit and vegetable recommendation

Today Beko, the leading domestic appliance brand in Europe, released the results of a global survey that reveals a gap in children’s knowledge and interest in healthy eating compared to their knowledge and interest in football.

Last month, Beko, with support from partners FC Barcelona, the Barça Foundation and UNICEF, surveyed over 13,500 children aged 6-10 across 18 countries. The findings show that children are significantly better informed about football than they are about healthy eating, and when it comes to making healthy food choices, they can be positively influenced.

When asked why they eat healthy food, over two-thirds of children across all 18 countries said they do so because they understand that it is good for them. A further 80% of children said they would be more interested in eating healthy food if they knew their hero or role model took healthy eating seriously too.

Over 70 of children could identify the number of players in a professional football team, but only one fifth of children knew the recommended portions of fruit or vegetables that they should eat each day. Children in France and in the UK set an impressive example to their global counterparts with 78% and 68% of children answering correctly in comparison to the US (16%), Brazil (11%), Russia (9%), and China (3%).

Beko understand that children may need a helping hand from their heroes to further their knowledge around healthy eating. Beko’s ‘Eat Like A Pro’ campaign is rooted in inspiring children to eat like their heroes. By sharing FC Barcelona players’ favourite healthy recipes online, Beko hope that families worldwide will be inspired to recreate the meals at home.

The ‘Eat Like A Pro’ initiative, in partnership with UNICEF and the Barça Foundation, was launched last year with the mission to help prevent childhood obesity worldwide. After enlisting support from FC Barcelona heroes in an award-winning online campaign, Beko donated €1 million euros to fund six UNICEF programmes in Latin America to support children, parents, schools and governments with healthy eating. The programmes target over 500,000 children.

Beko releases the global survey alongside a video starring FC Barcelona player and Eat Like A Pro global ambassador Gerard Piqué, who surprised a group of school children to quiz them on their knowledge of football and food, and inspire them by revealing his own healthy habits.

Although 7 in 10 children admitted they would rather learn a new football skill than learn about healthy eating, Beko is determined to enact positive change and encourage children to engage with FC Barcelona football heroes on this topic.

"“Through our partnerships with FC Barcelona, the Barça Foundation and UNICEF we have developed a campaign that tackles a serious global issue, and one we felt we could make a difference to. The findings of this study confirm the job we still have to do to help prevent childhood obesity, but they show that Eat Like A Pro can play a key role in helping families and inspiring children around the world to lead healthier lives.” "

Zeynep Yalim Uzun, Chief Marketing Officer at Beko

Roland Kupka, Senior Advisor for Nutrition at UNICEF global commented: “UNICEF is concerned about the increasing rates of overweight and obesity in children worldwide. Promoting healthy eating among children to reverse this worrisome trend is of paramount importance. Our partnership with Beko and FC Barcelona is part of UNICEF’s strategy to make healthy eating and active lifestyles the norm among children and adolescents, everywhere.”

FC Barcelona Player Gerard Piqué added: “When I was young, I wasn’t really interested in healthy eating, I only cared about football, but that all changed when I joined Barça and started to learn with the team nutritionists. It’s fantastic to see the passion for the beautiful game among children around the world, and to know that me and my teammates are inspiring them is fantastic. We have an important role to inspire children to eat healthily, and I’m very happy to be able to do that through the Beko Eat Like A Pro campaign.”

Go to www.beko.com/eatlikeapro to discover how to make healthy eating fun with tips and tricks, plus the favourite recipes of FC Barcelona stars including Gerard Piqué, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.

About Beko

Beko is the international home appliance brand of Arçelik operating in more than 140 countries. It offers product lines that include major appliances, air conditioners and small appliances. Beko is the leading freestanding home appliances brand in Europe in the white goods sector and no.1 large home appliances brand in the UK. The brand is a Global Main Partner of FC Barcelona, naming partner of Fenerbahçe Men’s Basketball Team and Official Supplier of European League of Legends Championship (LEC).

For more information on Eat Like A Pro, please visit www.beko.com/eatlikeapro

For more information or imagery, please contact:

The Beko Global team: BekoMSL@mslgroup.com

About FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona was founded nearly 120 years ago in 1899, and is unique in many ways. The club is owned by its more than 145,000 members and can boast of being the most successful club in Europe over the last years. Since season 2004/05 they have won four of the Club’s five Champions League titles and ten of their 26 domestic league titles. Due to its very special personality, ‘Barça’ is recognized as being ‘more than a club’. The team’s distinctive style of play is projected around the world by the best players and coaches of their time in combination with club’s famous reliance on homegrown talent.

All of this goes hand in hand with its ongoing ambition to become the most admired, beloved and global sports institution on the planet. This mission is supported by such core principles as humility, effort, ambition, respect and team-work, while the club is also famed for its commitment to society, which is channeled through the FC Barcelona Foundation and its work to educate children through the positive values of sport. Such unstoppable growth in recent years has led to a global reach of more than 315 million fans and made FC Barcelona a world leader on social media.

About the Barça Foundation

The Barça Foundation was launched in 1994 to support the children and youth of the most vulnerable social groups through sport and education in values, with the objective of contributing to a more just and inclusive society. The Barça Foundation frames its activities within the UN programmes Sport for Development and Sustainable Development Goals. The main action lines are educational access and support, violence prevention and conflict resolution in childhood and youth and combatting social exclusion and discrimination. Today, the Foundation reaches to more than 1,5 million beneficiaries around the world.