Conference “Smart Family – 2025” Held in Kaunas: Focus on Children’s Health and Family Well-being
On May 20, the Public Health Bureau of Kaunas City Municipality brought together specialists, parents, and public health partners for the scientific-practical conference “Smart Family – 2025.” The event focused on the most pressing topics concerning children’s health: poor nutrition, lack of physical activity, excessive screen time, and the increasingly alarming state of children’s mental and emotional well-being.
This conference is an important part of the “Health4EUkids” project – a Europe-wide initiative funded by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency. The goal of the project is to share successful health promotion practices among European countries and to contribute to the improvement of public health at the community level.
In 2024, the city of Kaunas chose to implement the Finnish best practice program “Smart Family,” which is based on activities that promote healthy lifestyles for the whole family. More than 20 families with children from Kaunas have already participated in the program. They not only deepened their knowledge about healthy nutrition and physical activity but also had hands-on experience preparing health-friendly meals and spending active, quality time together.
This initiative represents a significant step toward long-term societal change: healthier habits, stronger family bonds, and happier children.
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The “HEALTH4EUkids” Joint Action aims to implement health promotion and prevention strategies for child obesity across European countries. It seeks to share best practices and research findings, particularly focusing on the initiatives Grunau Moves from Germany and Smart Family from Finland. The project involves knowledge transfer, cooperation between member states, policy development, and the promotion of healthy lifestyles in families and communities. Its goal is to prevent childhood obesity, increase physical activity and healthy diet, and ensure the sustainability and transferability of successful practices to other member states.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s EU4HEALTH Programme under the Grant Agreement no 101082462