HEALTHY EATING AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROJECT

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HEALTHY EATING AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROJECT

• Thorndon Park Kindergarten
• 2007 and 2008

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Why did we want to be involved?

• To look more closely at what our children are
  currently eating and doing
• Extend our knowledge and practices
• Support parents and be supported by them
• Be an active part of the solution
• Wanted to link to our Environmental Education
  curriculum
• Want healthy children with proactive and positive
  attitudes towards their own and others physical
  activity and health.

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Our values and beliefs

• Food and physical activity
• What values were you raised with?
• How does that impact on you now?
• Do these effect our work with children and
  families in these areas?
• What do we know about the values and beliefs of
  families at our centre?
• How do we know?

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Health Issues from Eat Well SA

• Changing Health and Eating Patterns
• Changed diet
• Changed physical activity patterns
• Busy families
• Food choices away from home
• Trend in health chronic disease
• Changes in serve sizes up-sizing
• Pre-packaged is more appealing

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Health Issues for Preschoolers

• An overweight child has an 80 risk of becoming
  an overweight adult
• Early onset of Type 2 diabetes
• Increase in dental caries
• Children with poor nutrition at greater risk of
  poor mental health, lower academic achievement
  and behavioural problems
• Chronic disease established in early childhood
• Food preferences established in first 3 years
• Iron (irritability) iodine (performance)
  deficiencies in early years
• Links between food and emotions rewards
  punishments
• TV food advertising under 7 years dont
  understand its just ad
• Children are now eating 2-3 times non-core
  foods
• 40-56 increase in lollies, muesli bars,
  chocolate in 10 years
• 29-48 increase in sugar based beverages in 10
  years
• 1/3 of children eat chips, Twisties, Cheezels as
  snack foods
• 15 increase in SA 4-5 yr olds overweight between
  1995-2002

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What did we want to achieve?

• Work towards a healthier future for our children
• Need for and benefits of a healthy diet and
  exercise
• Influence changes by children and adults in the
  choice of healthy snack foods
• Develop our own knowledge and skills
• Develop new curriculum resources

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What did we do?

• Explored our own values and beliefs about what we
  thought was happening
• Decided to focus on food first
• Gathered data about snacks
• Decided that snacks were generally reasonably
  healthy but there were large amounts
• Decided then to also focus on physical activity

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• Explored the different foods brought for snack
  time
• Displayed the packaging from processed snack
  foods collected over a week.
• Explored the list of ingredients on the pack that
  helps us make informed choices
• Charted the fat and sugar contents of common bars
  and snacks
• Took photographs of children's snacks and used
  these to stimulate discussion
• Recorded the variety of snacks over a week at
  the beginning of the project and towards the end.

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What did we find out?

• An increasingly healthy range of snack foods but
  pre-packaged foods with high sugar and/or fat
  content are still quite common
• Some misconceptions about what foods are healthy
  because of advertising that promotes eg. fruit
  content but not sugar content
• Those who bring more bars and less healthy foods
  tend to be younger or newer children with less
  exposure to the discussions about healthy foods
• A large amount of food in their snack box which
  takes a long time to eat, reducing the time
  available for physical activity.

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We also.

• 2. Recorded the childrens level of physical
  activity
• At the beginning of the project and at the end,
  using time samples.
• High
• Medium
• Low
• We found
• Fairly dramatic increase in the levels of high
  activity for both boys and girls
• Who the individual children were who consistently
  scored low levels

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Girls activity
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Boys activity
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Children need to understand why

• 3. Found out what the children already knew about
  healthy foods.
• We used
• Mind maps to explore the words healthy and
  unhealthy
• Photos of snack foods to explore healthy, not
  very healthy or a little bit healthy
• Puzzles and felt pictures, magazine collages and
  stories
• We were quite surprised at the high level of
  knowledge and awareness in some children, showing
  that families are increasingly talking about this
  issue with their children.

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It helps to know what else they do

• 4. Surveyed the parents regarding
• The different types of physical activity their
  children were involved in
• The time children spent involved in physical
  activity
• Every day
• Once a week
• More than once a week
• Rarely

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24 parents responded out of 52

• Physical activity that rated 5 or more for once
  a week
• Swimming 10
• Bike riding 7
• Soccer 5
• Physical activity that rated 5 or more for more
  than once a week
• Swinging 13
• Ball games 11
• Running 10
• Climbing 10
• Digging 10
• Bike riding 7
• Soccer 5

• Physical activity that rated 5 or more for every
  day
• Walking 8
• Running 8
• Trampoline 6
• Also
• We didnt have a column to record never. Some
  of the rarely actually meant never. Of
  particular significance were the 13 children who
  rarely (or never) walked to kindergarten.
• We should have had a question about the amount of
  time spent doing sedentary things eg. watching TV
  
• Parents added playing in the cubby house and
  working on the farm

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We can make a difference.

• 5. Sought community and Government support
• Governing Council wrote to the local minister to
  lobby the Federal government, for a review of
  junk food advertising during childrens
  television programs. This now seems to be gaining
  traction in the government and media including a
  review of toys to promote food.
• Coles donated stickers and handouts to promote
  eating fruit
• Free resources from state Go for 2 Fruit 5 Veg
  campaign
• Gave parents a lot of information about dietary
  and physical activity needs of young children

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• 6. Attended T and D to develop skills and
  knowledge
• ACHPER (Australian Council for Health, Physical
  Education and Recreation SA) READY TO GO
  workshop about Fundamental Movement Skills and
  activities that encourage their development
• Local Hub group to share ideas to promote healthy
  eating and physical activity (termly meeting)
• State training days

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Raising the bar!

• 7. Purchased new equipment and resources.
• WEE PLAY gross motor skills equipment (can be
  used indoors and out) that enables children to
  actively and collaboratively plan and build a
  course either themselves or with support.

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• Puzzles to encourage discussion about healthy
  food choices
• A light box to explore x rays in the hospital
  area, learning about the relationship between
  food and health.

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When its fun, they will come.

• A Tandem Walker that can be used individually or
  co-operatively to develop co-ordination and
  balance skills.

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• 8. Involved the community with a HEALTHY EATING
  DAY.
• Families donated fruits and vegetables
• Some parents helped to cut up and talk about the
  fruits and vegetables with the children,
  encouraging them to try new or unfamiliar ones
• The local member of parliament came to support
  the children and families.
• Children took home a sample bag of recipes,
  stickers, things to make.

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• We also made
• Healthy Pizzas to share
• Kids Survival Packs from the Go for Two and
  Five campaign brochures, filled with a choice of
  popcorn and dried fruits to encourage new ideas
  about snack foods.

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• Made the vegetable man from the Go for 2 and 5
  advertising, learning the names of unfamiliar
  vegetables.

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Utilising outside expertise.

• 9. Organised a visit from
• Life Education
• Reinforced the message about choosing a balance
  of healthy foods
• Taught the children about some of the ingredients
  in common foods and drinks such as Coke.

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• We learnt about the organs inside the body that
  work better if we eat healthy food.
• The children were encouraged to choose healthy
  options to go on a picnic.

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• 10. We created a vegetable garden to learn about
• The importance of eating fresh foods
• Where foods come from
• Plants need water for health just like we do.

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The best results come from working together ..

• 11. Had a healthy eating shared lunch
• The children picked the lettuces they had grown
  to put into healthy wraps
• Parents brought food to share such as carrot,
  beetroot, cucumber, dips, tomato and cheese. They
  also read stories to their children about a
  variety of different foods.

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The project also provided opportunities to
develop.

• LITERACY and NUMERACY SKILLS - writing, reading,
  talking, counting and measuring
• We made graphs on which to write our names and
  favourite vegetables, reinforcing the message
  that fruit and vegetables are really good to eat.
  

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• LITERACY/NUMERACY SKILLS talking, reading,
  viewing, listening, measuring, estimating,
  counting
• We sang songs such as Nicholas Ned he lost his
  head, he put a there instead learning the
  names and talking about favourite vegetables
• We explored computer software My Amazing Human
  Body to learn more about the human body including
  how it works and the energy used in different
  forms of physical activity.

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• LITERACY/NUMERACY SKILLS drawing, writing,
  reading, talking, counting, measuring
• We used reference books and other resources to
  stimulate drawing, painting and talking about the
  body including bones and organs.

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Challenging attitudes supporting inclusion

• Existing resources became even more effective
  when used within a wider context of related
  learning about health and fitness.
• We used books such as
• The Boy who Loved Dumplings
• Going for Kalta
• Dont forget the Cheese Pa
• to
• Value the culturally different foods that
  children bring or eat at home
• Reinforce the message that trying different or
  unfamiliar foods can be fun as well as healthy
• Encourage making, growing or catching food rather
  than always buying it.

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And now for the real thing..

• A parent who is a high school science teacher
  brought a set of sheep's lungs, heart and liver
• Demonstrated how the lungs inflate when air is
  blown through the tube
• Dissected a sheeps heart and liver, drawing
  comparisons to human organs.

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Healthy people healthy planet

• ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
• We buried fruit and vegetable scraps and plastic
  packaging from the snack table for two weeks to
  find out what would decompose.
• We discovered that
• Plastics do not decompose in the soil so it is
  better to bring fresh foods in a recyclable
  container rather than pre-packaged, snack foods
  
• Food scraps do decompose and provide nutrients
  for the soil and the creatures in it, providing
  better growing conditions for growing healthier
  food in the future.

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Every action has a consequence.

• If we use rainwater from our tank to water the
  plants
• We are conserving water to ensure we have enough
  to drink
• The plants will grow healthier and produce more
  for us to eat

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More evidence and findings

• Physical activity
• Initially there were fewer girls who participated
  in high level physical activity.
• Girls generally tended to have lower levels of
  physical activity than boys
• Some girls have improved in their participation
  and confidence
• There is now a greater range of physical
  activities during the session due to new ideas,
  equipment and an increased focus in the
  curriculum
• However - we need to continue to be proactive in
  providing for the successful participation of
  both genders, monitoring any dominance or
  exclusion.

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• Healthy eating
• Greater number of fresh food snacks such as
  fruits and vegetables
• More spontaneous discussion and awareness about
  the link between healthy foods and healthy bodies
  amongst the children
• More discussions with parents about what we are
  doing and support for working together to achieve
  our goal of healthier children.
• When children first start kindergarten, there is
  often a higher frequency of bars and processed
  snacks. This appears to lessen as the childs
  time at kindergarten extends.

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Positive change .

• Parents have said
• Thanks for sending out the physical activity
  survey, its made me realise that.. really could
  be doing more physical activity.
• This is a good idea (the shared healthy eating
  day) because Ive been trying so hard to get my
  daughter to eat healthier food at home and at
  parties. I even prepared a lot of healthy food at
  a party but the children who came turned their
  noses up at it and wanted the junk.
• My son wanted me to make healthy pizzas at home
  with capsicum, and he never eats capsicum at
  home.
• Did he really eat the vegetable soup?
• I love all these initiatives. They help us
  Mums.

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Why change? Whats in it for us?

• Changing parent attitudes and behaviours
• Parents responded to ways of getting an edge
  for their child through these messages
• Better health, better learning
• Children, Youth Womens Health Service SA
• Healthy eating and physical activity gives
  children a greater advantage for learning by
  promoting optimum brain function, more so than
  tutors, formal classes and programs.