Education
Health and Community Services
March 6, 2007

New Contest Promotes Healthy Eating

Student buy-in is paramount if schools are to fully embrace the new provincial School Food Guidelines. This is the message government has received from teachers, food service providers and students themselves. To encourage students to make healthy eating choices, government has launched a healthy eating poster contest.

"Our students need encouragement to make healthy food choices, and we hope the messages that the students themselves create through this contest will inspire everyone to eat healthy," said the Honourable Joan Burke, Minister of Education. "We can offer healthy choices all we want in our school cafeterias but until the students decide for themselves that they want to eat nutritious foods, we must continue to promote the importance of healthy eating and active living."

The poster contest, sponsored by the departments of Education, and Health and Community Services, was launched today to mark the beginning of Nutrition Month. Contest information is being sent to each of our boards. Schools are asked to forward one poster from each of three grade categories (K-6, 7-9 and 10-12) and include an essay describing how the prize money will be used to support healthy living initiatives. Submissions should be forwarded to the school board and one winning poster will be chosen from each grade category in each school district. Winning schools will each receive $500, for a total of $7,500 being provided to the winning schools.

"We invested $3.7 million in Budget 2006 for the implementation of our Provincial Wellness Plan because we recognize that wellness promotion is one of the keys to improving the health of our people," said the Honourable Ross Wiseman, Minister of Health and Community Services. "Through our Wellness Plan, we are promoting the benefits of healthy eating, active living, injury prevention and being smoke free among all ages � young and old. It is essential that we plant the seed among school-age children and encourage them to make healthy choices that they will hopefully maintain throughout their lives."

The contest deadline is March 31. Schools are asked to submit their entries to the school health promotion liaison consultant at the school board. Each entry should include the group name which created the poster, the grade category, school and school district.

"Students have one month to get their ideas together and create their healthy living poster. I encourage everyone to get involved with this contest. Working together, I know students can come up with some innovative, meaningful healthy living messages. Doing so, they encourage others to eat well, be active and make good life choices," said Minister Burke.

Government unveiled the Provincial Wellness Plan in March 2006. Key initiatives of the Wellness Plan introduced to date include Healthy Students, Healthy Schools, the School Food Guidelines and the Provincial Wellness Grants Program whereby government announced funding to support 24 community groups and organizations in promoting the benefits of healthy living. Additionally, government recently launched a television ad campaign to support the directions of the Provincial Wellness Plan.

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Media contacts:

Jacquelyn Howard
Director of Communications
Department of Education
709-729-0048, 689-2624
jacquelynhoward@gov.nl.ca
Tansy Munson
Director of Communications
Department of Health and Community Services
709-729-1377, 685-1741
tansymundon@gov.nl.ca

2007 03 06                                                   9:30 a.m.

 


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