The creation of a healthy recipe book; by young people for young people

A group of local Youth Commissioners have worked in collaboration with Dudley Council to create a recipe book, Cooking made easy, for young people. 

Based on their own personal experiences the group wanted to develop a resource that would help young people living independently to cook for themselves and eat a healthy diet.

Access to sufficient and nutritious food is critical to the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young adults at such a critical point in their lives. Despite this, evidence shows that many young people are consuming inadequate diets, eating too much saturated fat, sugars and salt and too little fibre, fruit and vegetables.

Research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has found that UK adolescents get around two-thirds of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods (UPFs). UPFs tend to be foods with poor dietary quality. This is because they often contain high levels of added sugars, saturated fat and salt and tend to have lower levels of fibre, protein and micronutrients. Consequently diet-related conditions such as diabetes and obesity are increasingly affecting young people – diseases normally associated with adult life.

Furthermore, young people living independently have been disproportionately impacted by the rise in cost of living as they are more likely to be working in low paid roles. This coupled with increasing food prices has made access to healthy food even more difficult for this cohort of the population. In addition to this often-having limited cooking equipment and a lack of cooking skills has further compounded the challenges they face.

Whilst there are many cookbooks on the market for young people, the recipes can often be complex, time consuming and require the use of expensive ingredients or equipment. With this in mind, this project set out to develop a free resource for young people that would provide low cost, simple recipes that require minimal ingredients and equipment.

The idea for creating this recipe book for young people was borne from a group of Youth Commissioners volunteering with Dudley Council. The group are passionate about improving the health of young people and wanted to create a resource that would support their peers to cook for themselves and make healthier food choices. Using their own lived experience, the commissioners wanted to overcome the barriers identified above to create an easy-to-use resource, with recipes that are simple to follow, low-cost and could be prepared with minimal ingredients and equipment.

The simple, low budget and healthy recipes included in the resource range from basic explanations on how to cook pasta, or a boiled egg, to more complicated ‘fakeaways’, including curry and chow mein. The commissioners felt it was important to give every recipe a difficulty rating so that every young person feels capable of cooking their own dishes at their own pace.

‘The focus of this recipe book is to help young people in Dudley feel independent and empowered. Throughout developing this recipe book, we have strived to make every young person feel capable of cooking their own meals at their own pace’. Dudley Youth Commissioner

Although the book is primarily aimed at young people, it is a useful guide for people of all ages wanting to prepare healthy dishes for themselves or their family. Ultimately equipping the population with skills and knowledge for a healthier life.

The development of the resource was instigated and led by the Youth Commissioners who worked closely with Dudley Council (Public Health & Commissioning) to create the contents for the resource. The Council’s Communications Team then produced several proofs, which the commissioners reviewed and then chose which they preferred.

At the start of this journey, several of the Youth Commissioners had recently left care and were now living independently for the first time. This lived experience gave real insight into the challenges that young people face when trying to achieve a healthy diet, which informed the development of the resource and the types of recipes chosen.

Furthermore, the commissioners recognised how diverse the communities, cultures and backgrounds young people come from in Dudley. Therefore, to ensure the chosen recipes appealed to all tastes and preferences the commissioners consulted with a wider group of young people about what types of dishes they would like to see in the book. This was undertaken using a simple online questionnaire, which enabled easy collation of the responses.

The book has been shared and promoted with a range of settings and services that work with young people, such as Schools, Colleges, the 0 – 19 health & wellbeing service, Youth Workers, Dudley Here4YOUth, Family Hubs, Young Health Champions, Leaving Care Team and the local Integrated Health Improvement Service. Neighbouring local authorities have also requested the resource so they can share with their own young people.

Evaluating the impact of the resource on young people’s food choices is challenging without knowing exactly which young people have received or downloaded the book. However, anecdotal feedback indicates that the resource is a valuable tool to support young people living independently.

‘The general feedback from young people is that they find the menus are simple and easy to follow; also, the meals are generally inexpensive to prepare. We have also used them at drop-in and staff found it easy to use with the young people. CHADD also uses the booklet with young people there.’ Dudley Care Manager

This is a great idea especially as it covers all areas of beginners cooking. It’s important that young people know how to do all of these things as well as the fun ones like the chicken veggie curries and the kebab.’ Young person living in Dudley

The booklet has great illustrations, is easy to follow and has some nice recipes when working within a budget’. Young person living in Dudley

To ensure everyone in Dudley has access to the book, it has been made available to download on Dudley Council’s Health and Wellbeing website, Healthy Dudley. Making the recipe book a digital resource has significantly reduced the costs of production and made it accessible to all, ensuring a sustainable approach.

The recipe book is part of a collection of health and wellbeing resources Dudley Council have created for children and young people and their families, including a healthy lunchbox resource and an information sheet on youth vaping for parents and carers.

When developing a heath and wellbeing resource aimed at the public, collaboration with the target population and relevant service providers is crucial. Their insight is essential to inform the contents and format of the resource to ensure it meets the needs of the population it is intended for.

The time needed to develop a resource should not be underestimated. A clear timescale and plan must be in place for all those involved in its development to ensure that actions are completed, and deadlines are achieved.

Dudley Council, Public Health Children and Young Peoples Team 

Email: [email protected]