Page 239 - Week 01 - Thursday, 12 February 2015
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The “Towards zero growth: healthy weight action plan” launched in 2013 is a whole-of-government approach which aims to slow the growing rates of obesity for Canberrans. ACT Health runs a number of programs which align with this plan. Health prevention programs help children build healthy behaviours early in life so that they grow into healthy, productive adults. An example of this is the successful fresh tastes program, which was launched in 2014.
Fresh tastes works across our primary schools to increase the availability and knowledge of healthy food and drink choices through schools and includes supporting teachers to provide nutrition education, supporting canteens to provide nutritious menus, giving kids hands-on experience in cooking and gardening and encouraging families to provide healthy school lunchboxes.
The ride or walk to school program builds the capacity of schools to promote active travel through providing cycling equipment, teacher training and resources such as road safety training to encourage more kids to ride or walk to school and to convince their parents that it is a good thing. The good habits for life communication program, launched in 2014, helps to address obesity by helping parents to role model healthy habits for their kids through three core behaviours of eating well, moving more and connecting with those around them.
Preventive health for adults is also important. The healthier work service delivers employers increased access to information, support, training and incentives that build their capacity to create healthier work environments, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. I note that my colleague Mr Gentleman was at a breakfast this morning talking about this program and the importance of it.
The ACT government is engaged on several fronts to support healthy eating at sporting events. Its efforts in this context recognise the synergies between physical activity associated with sport, healthy eating, and addressing overweight and obesity. The healthy food at sport program has been a partnership between ACT Health and the government’s sport and recreation services to encourage community sporting clubs to increase healthy food and drink choices in their canteens.
The program will cease in 2015, with the Australian Drug Foundation to implement the good sports initiative, which uses an accreditation scheme for alcohol management practices, tobacco management and healthy food promotion and supply in sporting clubs and organisations.
As part of Labor’s 2012 election commitment on tackling obesity, the health promotion grants program has been realigned to have a much stronger focus on obesity, particularly amongst kids, and in programs that support smoking and alcohol reduction and healthy, active ageing. The grants program now offers two types of grants. The larger of the two funding rounds is the healthy Canberra grants. Once a year we prioritise multi-year programs that can demonstrate impact across our entire population. The smaller health promotion innovation fund, which is assessed three times a year, provides grants of up to $15,000 for innovative health promotion projects.
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