Chapter 8 – Promoting Healthy Eating

WHAT WE WILL BE COVERING

• Government role in promoting healthy eating– Nutrition surveys– Nutrient reference values– Government agencies to promote healthy eating

• Australian Guide to Healthy Eating• Dietary Guidelines

– Food standards legislation

• Non-Government role in promoting healthy eating– Nutrition Australia– Heart Foundation

Governments role

• We know that healthy eating is a major way to improve our health and maintain a healthy lifestyle. It also reduces costs associated with treating many diseases.

• The Australian government addresses public health nutrition through health promotion activities.

• They conduct surveys, provide standardised recommendations for nutrients, fund awareness programs and make laws for what people can say about their food.

Nutrition Surveys

• Why? To monitor and assess what we are eating. Once we know this, we can identify problems, fun appropriate programs and develop public policy that addresses these concerns.

• We can monitor changes in eating habits over time, to measure the success of programs and modify.

• Example: Finding – children in all age groups exceed recommended sodium intake.

• Solution?– Mandatory declaration of sodium content– Education/awareness about recommended levels– Tax on junk food

Examples of Surveys

• National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey

• Food Consumption Survey• National Nutrition Survey

National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity survey?

– Specifically aimed at children. Why important?– Addresses both exercise and food intake. Why?– Age 5-16– Participants recalled what they had eaten in the

last 24 hours.– Participants wore pedometers to measure

incidental exercise. Why?

Food Consumption Survey

• Measures how much food is available.• Measures consumption of different food groups.• Works on the ‘apparent consumption’ – the amount

of food being produced and sold divided by the amount of people.

• Look at the graphs on ppp220-221. what can you say overall about the amount of food we have available to eat?

National Nutrition Survey

• All age groups• Detailed survey including physical

measurements, recall of food intake and profile of eating habits.

• Compares what people are eating to RDI’s• Data from this survey can highlight population

groups at risk to enable special programs

Nutrition Surveys Questions

• Use the information from the previous slides and your text book (pp216-223) to complete these questions;

1.Why do governments use nutrition surveys? What are their potential benefits?

2. Identify and describe 3 nutrition surveys – who are they aimed at, what do they aim to do, what benefits have they provided?

3.What limitations are there for using nutrition surveys?

Healthy Food Basket Survey

• The healthy food basket is a set selection of healthy food that is typically available all over Australia. It contains the nutritional and energy requirements for a family of 6 for 2 weeks.

• The survey involves testing to see how much this basket costs to purchase in different parts of the country.

• The more it costs, the less likely you are to eat healthily.

Nutrient Reference Values

• Detailed research into the requirements of the human body.

• Reference to measure what we are putting into our body against.

• NRV is the ‘amount of nutrients required on an average daily basis for adequate physical functioning and the prevention of disease.

4 Reference values

• EAR – Estimated average requirement– Estimated to meet the needs of half the healthy

individuals in a particular demographic.

• RDI – recommended dietary intake– Sufficient to meet the needs of nearly all

individuals in a demographic. As not everyone has the same needs, this figure accounts for a wider range of people

• AI – adequate intake– Sometimes an RDI cannot be determines. When

this is the case, the average intake of this nutrient is used.

• UL – upper limit– Most nutrients are useful but cannot be

consumed in unlimited quantities. UL is the most you can consume without increasing the risk of health problems.

Beneficial?

• Health professionals can use as a guide when prescribing treatments.

• Meal planning by individuals or organisations.• Food labelling – people have informed

choices.• Helps empower people. ______ model of

health.

Limitations

• They are recommendations for healthy people. People already sick, elderly and infants or people with special needs need individual advice.

• Designed to be used by health professionals, not individuals as they are very detailed and require some knowledge of nutrition.

Complete activity 8.4

Government Programs

• Australian Guide to Healthy Eating

• Dietary Guidelines

• Use the following slides to complete your “government agencies summary table”

Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (AGHE)

• Funded by Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services and was first published in 1998.

• Aim is to help people understand the relationship between nutrients and food, so they have the necessary knowledge to choose a healthy diet.

• Provides general information that can be used by population as a whole rather than specific conditions.

• Divides foods into 5 main food groups and provides 4 main recommendations;

– Eat from each food group each day;– Choose a variety of foods from within each food group;– Lots of plant based foods, moderate animal based foods, and

minimal human constructed foods.– Drink lots of water.

• Do these sound general, and easy to remember, or specific and complicated.

• What do you think the benefits and limitations of this program are?

Benefits/Limitations

Benefits– Applies to everybody– Easy to remember the recommendations– Contains information about quantities of each

food– Visual – easy to digest

Limitations– Not specific to individuals, age groups, ethinic

groups, activity levels etc.

Dietary Guidelines

• Guidelines have been developed by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for the past two decades.

• Most recent guidelines published in 2003.• Aims to promote benefits of healthy living and

eating. Distils into 4 guidelines that allow you to be a healthy adult.

What are the Guidelines?

• Enjoy a wide range of nutritious foods– Same ideas as AGHE.

• Be physically active and balance energy input and output.

• Care for your food– Food bourne illnesses are common.

• Encourage and support breast-feeding.- Best nutritional start to life.

Benefits/Limitations

• Benefits– More than just what to eat. Involves what to do

with our food as well as managing food intake and output – more holistic.

– Much more detail than AGHE – explains why we need to do certain things.

– Age appropriate

• Limitations– Less accessible – harder/more effort to understand

Food Standards Legislation

• The government is responsible for ensuring the country has a safe food supply.

• There are rules for farming, manufacturing, recalling food, monitoring imports and labelling.

• Ain Australia, we have a Food Standards Code, which aims to;– Protects public safety,– Provides information to consumers– Prevents misleading and deceptive conduct

Food standards code.

• To sell something as ‘food’, there is a minimum standard of quality which must be reached.

• Each type of food has a particular set of standards which cover, microorganism levels, nutritional content, and labelling requirements.

Food labelling

• Any food product must contain a list of information. – Name/description of the food– Name and address of manufacturer– Allergy warnings and advice– Ingredients list– Net weight– Nutritional info panel– Used by or best before date– Country of origin– Lot number– Percentage labelling– Food additives

Your turn!

• What do you think would happen if these laws were not in place?

• What would the effects of this be?• How do these laws promote healthy eating?• Educates/empowers people – gives us control• Eg.– Kid has allergy. Parent only buys food with no nuts.– Person is counting calories – allows them to monitor intake– Person has iron deficiency

Examples

• Kid has allergy. Parent only buys food with no nuts.

• Person is counting calories – allows them to monitor intake

• Person has iron deficiency – needs to eat foods high in iron.

• Write down one way that you could use food labelling to improve your own health.

Nutrient and Health Claims

• To sell food, people need a reason to buy it. Often food will be promoted as either tasty, cheap, healthy or a combination of these.

• Your cereal may say ‘calcium is good for strong bones’, which is true. This is a nutrient claim and is allowed.– Why would the cereal box say this?– What do you think about the cereal without reading anything

else?– What else should you read on the box?– How can the government restrict claims like this?

Examples of nutrient claims

• Once you put a claim on your food, their are nutritional requirements you need to reach.

• To say ‘low cholesterol’ you must have less than 20mg per 100g of food.

• Many food companies attempt to deceive us, which is why these requirements are in place.

• ‘light’ can mean light in colour, not fat.• Food is advertised as ‘fat free’ because it has lots of sugar.• Because nutrient are permitted they are difficult to

control.

Health claims

• Health claims tell us that if we eat the food, we will have a decreased rick of certain diseases.

• To say this – there must be clear, proven, reliable evidence that this is true.

• As this is much more complicated, there is only one health claim allowed – the benefit of folate during pregnancay to protect against defects.

TPS

• Discuss the Think Pair Share on p245 with the person next to you?

Non-government Programs

• Non-government agencies are funded largely by private donations. While governments are concerned with everybody, non-government organisations are funded by people with specific interests, so they target specific causes

• Examples include – cancer council, Australian Dieticians Association diabetes Australia, Nutrition Australia, Heart Foundation

• What do you think each of these organisations tries to do?

Nutrition Australia

• Founded in 1979 to promote educate about nutrition using scientifically based information.

• Offers services like funding for research, seminars, consults with food industry, menu assessments

• Developed the Healthy Living Pyramid.

Healthy Living Pyramid

Benefits

• Very easy to interpret and remember. Even if you are too busy to try and manage individual nutrients, everyone can remember three groups of food and ‘eat most, moderately and least’.

• Based on dietary guideline – simplifies it.• Pictorial – foods can be swapped depending on

audience.• Incorporates exercise.

Limitations

• No serving sizes – people can still eat too much or not enough.

• Because it is simplified, it is difficult to place some combination foods. A fruit tart could go in eat most because of the fruit or in eat least because of the fat and sugar.

Heart Foundation

• Aims to improve heart health and reduce disability and death from heart disease.

• Promotes and conducts research for prevention and treatment

• Promoting and influencing behaviour to improve heat health. Also produce publications.

• Their message is;– Enjoy healthy eating– Be active– Don’t smoke– Go to the doctor

Tick Program• The Heart Foundation tick of approval is

printed on foods that are low in nutrients that promote heart disease and high in one that reduce it.

• What could these be– Low saturated fat, trans fat, energy, salt– High fibre, calcium

• What effects do you think the tick has had on food quality?

Benefits

• Easy to identify foods that are more healthy – without having to specifically read nutrition info – someone we trust has done the work for us!

• Often we have a selection of items in the same category. The one with the tick usually represents a healthier choice.

• It is now a well known institution. People care about their health and will purchase the tick product. Manufacturers are changing their products to conform to the standards so they can print the tick, which makes them healthier for us.