Promoting environments that foster healthy eating

Strengthening community and reducing health inequities is one of the ways that Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health aims to improve the health and wellbeing of the people in our region. We do this by providing education, taking a system-based approach and advocating policies that make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Specific work is focussed on actions and outcomes to create change in food, nutrition and physical activity environments and behaviours, such as increasing access to food (food security).

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health staff work towards creating nutrition environments that foster and enable healthy eating, along with resources that support actions to reduce poor nutrition that may result in chronic disease. The key messages for a healthy lifestyle include:

• Eat a variety of nutritious foods.
• Eat more vegetables and fruits.
• Eat less processed foods that are often fatty, salty, and sugary.
• Exclusively breastfeed infants for six months where possible, and introduce complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for at least one year and beyond.
• Be active every day for at least 30 minutes in as many ways as possible.
• Add some vigorous exercise and resistance for extra benefit and fitness.
• Aim to maintain a healthy weight throughout life.
• Promote and foster the development of environments that support healthy lifestyles.

Promoting nutrition in education and community settings

Promoting positive food and drink messages and influencing food environments in community and education settings has a direct impact on the health and motivation of those involved, including staff, students and the wider community.

Current work by Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health staff includes:

• supporting education settings with their edible gardens and orchards;
• helping education settings to develop food and drink policies;
• assisting education settings to become Water Only Schools;
• resourcing kaiako in early childhood settings around oral health issues such as tooth-friendly kai and drinks;
• encouraging early childhood settings to be breastfeeding friendly;
• supporting community groups with nutrition resources;
• working collaboratively with communities to build strong and resilient food systems and increase food security; and
• providing expertise to help community organisations and councils develop and implement food and drink policies.

• Find out more about our health promotion work in education settings.
• Learn about the Love Kai programme for education settings in Waitaha | Canterbury.
• Read the latest Nutrition Bites information sheet.
• Download or order nutrition resources from the Community Health Information Centre.

Helping to create healthier workplaces

Current initiatives in workplaces are focussed on assisting workplaces in the development of wellness programmes.
There is growing evidence that comprehensive workplace health promotion programs are cost effective and improve employee health. Identified benefits include increased employee satisfaction and retention, and decreased absenteeism and injuries on the job.

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health has developed a framework that is flexible and easily adapted to suit the needs of an organisation. The framework consists of a step-by-step process with several different elements to create a tailored health promotion programme. This approach has been shown to increase morale in the workplace as employees work together to meet the challenges of adopting a healthy lifestyle.

• Healthy Food and Drink Guidance for Organisations (Ministry of Health 2020).

Working to improve food resilience in Canterbury

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health has an advisory role with Food Secure North Canterbury and the Food Resilience Network (FRN). The Network is the home of Edible Canterbury – a movement advocating for healthy and strengthened communities by:

• supporting existing local food producers;
• encouraging and educating for more locally grown food; and
• fostering relationships with key players in the food system to build a healthy resilient Canterbury.

A key project for the Food Resilience Network is the development of Ōtākaro Orchard. This will be a highly accessible, engaging, and unique orchard and garden in central Christchurch. The completed space will show sustainable and organic food systems in practice and build on its history as a place to gather mahinga kai.

• Download the Christchurch Food Resilience Network Action Plan (Christchurch City Council).

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health is also a signatory to the Edible Canterbury Charter.

Working to improve food resilience on the West Coast

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health facilitates and coordinates the West Coast Food Security Network. This network that aims to strengthen relationships and collaboration between organisations and agencies to improve food security for the communities on the Coast.

• Download “He Kai Kei Aku Ringaringa: Food Security on the West Coast” (University of Otago 2021).

Documents

• Rebalancing our food system (Public Health Advisory Commitee 2024).
• Towards understanding the role of kai in the complex lives of whānau (Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu 2023).
• Adults’ Dietary Habits: Findings from the 2018/19 and 2019/20 New Zealand Health Survey (Ministry of Health 2022).
• Children’s Dietary Habits:  Findings from the 2018/19 and 2019/20 New Zealand Health Survey (Ministry of Health 2022).
• The Economic and Social Cost Of Type 2 Diabetes (Diabetes New Zealand 2021). Executive summary also available.
• Mana to Mana: Principles of ‘Mana to Mana’ Practice in Community Food Distribution (Kore Hiakai Zero Hunger Collective 2021).

• Food Hardship and Early Childhood Nutrition: Findings from Growing Up in NZ with a focus on food hardship among tamariki Māori and Pacific children (University of Auckland, University of Otago and Ministry of Social Development 2020).
• Changes to New Zealanders’ grocery shopping, cooking and eating during the COVID-19 lockdown (Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 2020).
• Eating and Activity Guidelines for New Zealand Adults (Ministry of Health 2020).
• Aotearoa, the land of the long wide bare cupboard/ Food insecurity in New Zealand (Child Poverty Action Group 2019) – a series of reports.
• Household Food Insecurity among Children: New Zealand Health Survey (Ministry of Health 2019).

• Children and Young People Living Well and Staying Well: New Zealand Childhood Obesity Programme Baseline Report 2016/17 (Ministry of Health).
• How We Eat: Reviews of the evidence on food and eating behaviours related to diet and body size (Ministry of Health 2017).
• Healthy Food and Drink Guidance for Organisations (Ministry of Health 2016).
• Guidelines for School Food Programmes (Te Kete Ipurangi – Ministry of Education 2014).
• University of Otago Food Cost Survey.

Links

• Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand.
• Healthy Kids.
• Health Promotion Agency.
• Breastfeeding (Ministry of Health).
• La Leche League.
• Puāwai-Kai – replaces Appetite for Life and Senior Chef.
• Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
• Edible Canterbury.

Affordable kai on a budget

Te Mana Ora | Community and Public Health staff are interested in addressing issues around access and availability of affordable food – known as food security. Contact your local office about how we work in this area.

He Kai Kei Aku Ringa – He Kai has recipe cards and a series of short films which follow five whānau as they share their broad understandings of the whakataukī “he kai kei aku ringa” and how they practise this in their everyday lives. You can also download a 4-week meal plan to support you and your whānau as your personal relationships with food evolve and grow.

The Heart Foundation also produces two cookbooks of nutritious recipes on a budget:

• Cheap Eats; and
• Affordable Eats.

Fruit and Vegetable Co-ops in greater Christchurch

There are several fruit and vegetable co-operatives in Christchurch, including:

• Canterbury Fruit and Vegetable Co-op (Facebook); and
• Christchurch South Fruit and Vegetable Collective.