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Three new Panel members were welcomed to the meeting.

Feedback was provided from the Fun Day in the Forum held during half term (Oct 2010). This was positive and a great success with all ages, especially the ‘Great Gut Race,’ grip strength tests, and guess the portion size. Cantab memory game was also enjoyed by the children and the colouring activities for the younger children also went down well. All activities proved popular and many families attended.

EPIC are again manning a stand at the 2011 Cambridge Science Festival.  There will be an EPIC stand with game show type events relating to food. These will consist of a ‘higher or lower’ card game looking at the vitamin C content of foods. There will also be a ‘supermarket sweep’ game where shopping lists will be used i.e. ‘find three green vegetables’, ‘find three items high in fibre’ etc. A checkout will be set up where the items can be scanned and the computer will tell you whether you are right. A ‘leaning tower of Pizza’ game will also be used to balance items relative to a good diet. Leader boards will be used for all activities.

Packs of collector’s cards relating to food will be given out as prizes and printed magnetic EPIC bookmarkers will also be given out. It is hoped that this event will again be brought to the Forum in Norwich later in the year.

The Senior Nutritionist from the EPIC research team – Alison McTaggart, gave an extremely interesting presentation to illustrate the background and reason behind using the EPIC food diaries in the current format. A staggering 75% of 3rd health check food diaries are being completed and returned by those participants who take them away. A question and answer session followed with many interesting questions being put by Panel members.

A presentation was then given by Nichola Dalzell, outlining some of the thoughts surrounding the future planning of EPIC data collection. The Panel members were asked to put forward their views in taking this to the next stage – all Panel members were enthusiastic about the plans.