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See the 'Australian Dietary Guidelines' and the 'Australian Guidelines for Children' at the beginning of this section |
The strategies in this section are aimed at supporting people to make healthier food choices. They are relevant for people who are healthy and to others who may have a chronic illness such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and lung disease.
Some of the strategies are appropriate for individuals, but can be applied to groups. There are additional benefits to be gained through working with groups and with families.
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See the 'Australian Dietary Guidelines' and the 'Australian Guidelines for Children' at the beginning of this section |
"Drinking water, it's so important" It seems to me that most people here in Central Australia don't drink enough water. It amazes me that the little ones can go all day without drinking water and it is so important. In summer I have a bottle of water beside me all the time. I think that people, especially older people, are still in the habit of not drinking enough because in the old days water was so scarce.
Here at Congress we always stress the importance of drinking water, especially during the hotter months. We also tell people who are taking tablets, playing sport, or who have diabetes - we always tell the children. For adults we say they must drink at least two litres of water each day. With the children, we tell them to drink a lot.
We've got a water cooler here at Congress. The kids go backwards and forwards drinking and playing, playing and drinking but that's okay because at least they're drinking water. My little girl, she's six, says to me "The doctor says I've got to drink a lot of water." She listens. Drinking water is a really important health message. We are always telling people to drink more water.
Aboriginal Health Worker Manager, Independent Health Service
Store tours involve:
A store tour can be used to:
Organising store tours:
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target store tours at specific groups, such as people with diabetes, people who are overweight, children, mothers, grandmothers, men | |
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get permission and support from the store manager. Explain why you are conducting the tour. Find out the best time to offer the tour | |
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decide who will conduct the tour. (Who can communicate best with the group and who is well informed about foods) | |
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check with a nutritionist to make sure that your information is correct or to discuss suitable resources | |
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publicise the tour ahead of time so that people have a chance to attend |
Food displays and promotions can be an enjoyable way to share information about healthy food choices. Taste testing is a good way to promote foods that people may be hesitant to buy because they haven't tried them before.
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Contact your nutritionist to see what kind of resources are available | |
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Include ideas about food safety and food hygiene in the information being shared | |
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Only include foods that people have access to in the store | |
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Only include foods that most people will be able to prepare with the facilities and cooking utensils that they have in their home, women's centre or other community facility | |
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Do an evaluation, for example, check to see if there is a difference in how much of that product is being sold |
Promoting new foods and techniques You can't make assumptions about how much people know about buying, preparing and cooking contemporary foods. Of course most people know how to prepare traditional food and they are highly skilled at making soups and stews go a long way. The fast food generation however is outbush as well as in town. In many cultures cooking skills are often further developed in school or by visiting friends, restaurants, trying new recipes and asking questions. Aboriginal people who live out bush haven't necessarily had the opportunity to do this.
To promote new foods, or to encourage people to cook familiar foods differently, then you may consider cooking demonstrations or food promotion events. The store may be best placed to capture people's attention with promotions on pay-day. Store staff can be supported to develop the skills required to manage the promotion.
The demonstrations would include all the usual elements: give aways, taste testing, step by step instructions on food preparation and so on. When doing demonstrations it is best to use cooking implements which people are familiar with and which are locally available. If you are introducing a new tool, like a non-stick frypan for example then you always need to spend as much time demonstrating the new implement as you do on the food preparation.
Sabina Knight, Remote Health Education Program, Central Australia
It is very difficult to tell just by looking at food how much fat, sugar and salt is in the food. One way to raise awareness about the amount of fat and sugar is to show people how many teaspoons of fat or sugar there are in the food.
What you will need:
What to do:
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select the foods that will be displayed and put each one on a separate plate | |
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From the nutritional label calculate how many teaspoons of fat or sugar there are in the food |
Note: 5 grams sugar = 1 rounded teaspoon
4 grams fat = 1 teaspoon
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Or use the following table to set up the display |
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Measure out and display the amount of fat or sugar in front of the food | |
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Variation: turn it into a guessing game. Ask people to guess how much sugar and fat were in store foods by spooning out the number of teaspoons of sugar and margarine they think are in each food item |
Examples of foods displaying fat/sugar content:
9 teaspoons sugar in regular coke. No sugar in diet coke
No fat in a potato. No sugar in a potato.
If you are unable to make your own models, the Nutrition Team has a range of food models and illustrations that can be borrowed or copied.
They also have a longer list of information about the amount of fat and sugar in a wide range of foods.
Shelf talkers are promotional tags that are placed on the shelf in front of foods in the store. The idea is that they attract people's attention to specific items. The tags can have key messages on them, such as 'good healthy food', 'no sugar added', 'good strong food', 'low in fat'. The message will be conveyed more effectively if local language is used on the shelf talkers.
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Discuss the use of shelf talkers with store management. It is important to have store management interested, involved and informed | |
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Decide together with the Community Nutrition Worker or AHWs what kind of logo and colour/s will be used for the shelf talker | |
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Create interest and raise awareness about the project and food and nutrition issues, for example, with a poster competition | |
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Check regularly to see that shelf talkers are in the appropriate places | |
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Give a 'healthy shopping list' to store management so that they can make sure that the 'talkers' stay in the right places | |
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Remember, continuity and participation are keys to success |
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Check to see if there has been an increase in turnover of some or any of the recommended foods | |
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Conduct a small survey to ask some local people if they recognise the symbol and know what it means and if it has influenced their shopping | |
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See 'Surveys' in the chapter 'Planning and Evaluating a Health Promotion Project' in Volume 1 |
An example of paper/card tags, or 'shelf talkers', which highlight foods in the store.
This section has been adapted from the "Good Healthy Food" project carried out at Milner Road Supermarket, Alice Springs during 1997. The project was organised jointly by Tangentyere Council, THS and Diabetes Australia.
The Yuendumu Healthy Store Story We received $2500 from Health Promotion incentive funds to do a store project. We designed 2 different stickers with our own Aboriginal good food design on them and This is Healthy Tucker written in Walpiri on them. We had 5000 stickers printed. We made some of the stickers into shelf talkers and laminated them. Other stickers were kept to place on foods in the stores and the takeaway.
Lottie did an Aboriginal painting on canvas which showed lots of good foods including bush tucker. The Yuendumu Printery printed it onto posters. The posters have been laminated and placed around community organisations including the store. The school kids made some healthy food posters. We had a poster competition and fruit packs were given out as prizes. The posters have been put up in the school and store.
The social club donated 50 T shirts. We had them printed with Lottie's canvas design and had This is Healthy Tucker printed in English and Walpiri on the back. All the store workers wear the T shirts and we are selling others to print some more. The Healthy Families team all wore them at Yuendumu sports weekend. At the sports weekend we sold lots of healthy foods... we also sold some of the T shirts. We made $1000. With this money we have bought a cool water fountain for the community. This will be installed at the clinic for everyone to use.
The Launch
On the 1st and 2nd of October 1997 we launched the project at the Social Club Store. We put up the shelf talkers under all the healthy foods in the store and takeaway. This will make it easy for people to choose better foods to eat.
We put all the school kid posters up in the store and gave out free samples of healthy foods. We showed the store video which was recently filmed at Yuendumu. Lots of community people came along and enjoyed it.
National dairies donated some free samples of low fat, low sugar Feel Good flavoured milks. We gave out free samples and people liked it..
The Community Nutrition Worker Lenny Davis is now going to work from the store. He is going to continue the project by promoting the healthy foods and new lines of foods, making sure that the shelf talkers are in the correct places and telling people what the shelf talkers mean and which foods to choose. He is also going to work with takeaway and help them develop healthier takeaway foods. Lottie is going to promote the project in the community and with the Strong Women Workers and the Healthy Families Team....
Lottie Napangardi Robertson (Community Nutrition Worker)
Lenny Davis (Community Nutrition Worker)
Heather Napangardi Grieve (Nutritionist), 1998
There may be foods in the store that people don't know how to use. Cooking sessions are a way of getting people involved and learning by doing.
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Organise a cooking event to follow up a store tour | |
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Find a good venue for cooking, such as the women's centre, school, adult education centre, camps or the store |
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Ask the Nutrition team for help with healthy variations of popular recipes | |
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Find out whether the store manager is willing to donate food items (this could lead to increased sales later) or give a discount |
A 'brief intervention' is a short interaction with a client. It may only take a minute or so to give appropriate, well-timed advice or information on diet, nutrition or food. Brief interventions can take place at any time - either when people visit the health centre or when you are working out in the community.
Brief interventions involve making the most of any opportunity to raise a person's awareness, share knowledge and get the person thinking about making changes to improve their health. Information can get a person thinking about why it is important to eat healthy foods and which foods are healthy.
Brief interventions can be used:
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For more information about brief interventions and how to do them see 'Working with individuals' in the chapter 'Strategies for Health Promotion' in Volume 1 | |