Home

Nutrition & Physical Activity

Home > Public Health Services > Nutrition & Physical Activity

Having good nutrition and being active not only improves physical health,

it also improves mental health and overall wellbeing.

Nutrition and Physical Activity health promotion seeks to improve food behaviours and physical activity levels in populations by increasing fruit and vegetable intakes, reducing fat and sugar intakes and increasing physical activity in people’s everyday lives.

Nutrition promotion includes:

Reducing environments that encourage obesity
Improving food security
Increasing breastfeeding rates

Physical Activity Promotion includes:

Reducing sedentary lifestyles
Reducing environments that encourage obesity

Importance of Nutrition and Physical Activity:

Good nutrition and being sufficiently physically active can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and stroke - the three leading causes of death for New Zealanders.
A significant number of New Zealanders report running out of food, or being unable to eat properly because of lack of money.
A high proportion of New Zealanders are overweight or obese and obesity is one of the most serious risk factors for a number of life-threatening diseases and serious morbidity.
Rates of obesity in Maori and Pacific Islanders are higher than for New Zealand Europeans, which leads to further disparities in obesity related diseases.
Lack of physical activity is estimated to account for over 2000 deaths in New Zealand per year and at least one-third of New Zealand adults are insufficiently physically active.

Public Health South Promotes Nutrition and Physical Activity by:

Engaging in five Physical Activity Strategies through Otago and Southland. This involves getting communities to support initiatives that will increase people’s activity levels, through working with organisations in the different regions.
Producing "Healthy Hints for Tots " newsletter that is distributed to early childhood centres with the aim of increasing their knowledge about food safety, nutrition, oral health and other health topics. It also includes healthy snack ideas and fun activities that can help kids learn about healthy eating.
Developing the Catering Accord so that catering companies can supply a menu that has healthy options that meet the Ministry of Health’s guidelines around sugar, fat and salt content.
Being a part of the Southland Breastfeeding Advocacy Group. This group is currently supporting the initiation of a breastfeeding peer counselling programme, conducting an audit to ensure that retailers are complying with the NZ interpretation of the World Health Organisation's International Code of Marketing of Breast milk substitutes, as well as supporting organisations that support and promote breastfeeding.
Developing a ‘Workplace Wellbeing’ Programme through which PHS will work alongside specific organisations to enable them to identify and prioritise issues around the workplace that impact on employee health, and help to find ways of addressing those.
Working with social agencies to develop a cooking class resource that teaches people how to cook healthy food on a tight budget. We are currently updating this into a new resource that can be used by community organisations to help their clients meet their nutritional needs while on a tight budget as well as promoting basic cooking skills.
Producing the Southland Healthy Eating Healthy Action (HEHA) bi-monthly newsletter for all those involved or interested in HEHA in Southland.
Being actively involved in various physical activity initiatives throughout Otago and Southland, including Push Play, Bike Wise, and Step in Stride Challenge.

Walk the Talk
‘Walk the Talk’ is a new project that will seek commitment from at least five organisations in the Otago Healthy Eating Healthy Action (HEHA) network and five organisations in the Southland HEHA network to implement an intervention plan to address the need for healthy nutrition and physical activity policies in the workplace. Public Health South, in conjunction with Sport Otago and Sport Southland, will approach the organisations, assist in policy implementation and support workplaces to make their working environment healthier through nutrition and physical activity initiatives.

Related links