AUSTRALIAN children are being encouraged to start and end the day with dairy under Dairy Australia's latest Legendairy campaign, set to kick off on Sunday.
The latest promotion will be seen across the country on television screens, the internet and billboards, with Legendairy ambassador, former Olympic swimmer Michael Klim recommending children consume at least three forms of dairy each day.
The promotion, targeting parents of school-aged children, will include digital advertising asking consumers to highlight their favourite time of day to enjoy dairy, with weekly winners receiving Legendairy back-to-school packs.
Dairy Australia industry promotion and product innovation group manager Isabel MacNeill said February was the perfect time to begin the promotion while children were going back to school.
"We know most kids are under consuming dairy for their dietary requirements," Ms MacNeill said.
"Kids should be having three serves of dairy or more each day."
CSIRO research released last week showed children who didn't include dairy at breakfast didn't catch up on their nutritional requirements later in the day.
Children who incorporated dairy into their early morning routine then went on to consume an extra 29 per cent more dairy foods for the rest of the day.
Data from more than 4400 children was included in the study, which also found that 60pc of Australian children aged 12 to 16 failed to meet dietary recommendations for dairy consumption.
"Children need to increase their dairy intake as they grow, with boys and girls needing three-and-a-half serves a day by the time they reach 12 years of age," said CSIRO lead researcher Malcolm Riley.
"Unfortunately, despite their increased requirements, we know dairy food features less and less at breakfast time as children get older and this is a major concern."
Ms MacNeill said part of the reason for a decline in dairy consumption at breakfast was the move away from cereal at breakfast time.
"Previous generations always ate cereal for breakfast. Food patterns change and those traditional meal patterns are changing along the way," she said.
"Cereal with milk or yoghurt is still the most complete way to start the way and it's easy and affordable."
Dairy Australia will continue to promote Australian farmers and the work they do with on-farm videos telling farmers' stories.
"On our Legendairy website there's information about farmers and farming life," Ms MacNeill said.
"If you live in the city you've probably never been on a farm, so we're constantly looking to refresh stories, talking to different people in the dairy industry."
