General News
15 June, 2023
Initiative promotes healthy food options
Local football and netball clubs have been rolling out healthier canteen options in a bid to encourage long-term positive relationships with food. As part of the Victorian Government’s Healthy Loddon Campaspe initiative and Vic Kids Eat Well...
Local football and netball clubs have been rolling out healthier canteen options in a bid to encourage long-term positive relationships with food.
As part of the Victorian Government’s Healthy Loddon Campaspe initiative and Vic Kids Eat Well initiative, the Central Goldfields Shire Council have been working with the Dunolly and Carisbrook football and netball clubs to support local clubs to offer healthy food options at their canteens.
The Healthy Sports Clubs initiatives has provided both Dunolly and Carisbrook clubs with new menu boards and signage, small-scale kitchen equipment like sandwich presses, display fridges and slow cookers, as well as resources including healthy recipes.
Central Goldfields Shire Healthy Loddon Campaspe Broker Adam Tarr said the initiative wasn’t so much about replacing existing canteen food, but offering some healthier options.
“The old mentality around football clubs is you come to the footy and have a pie, bucket of chips and a beer which we’re not trying to change — we’re just trying to provide healthier options,” he said.
“Our flagship local club has really been Dunolly, we’ve been able to provide some equipment that has assisted on Thursday night training sessions and on game days as well to enable those healthier options.”
Data from the 2019 Active Living Census highlighted concerns regarding Loddon Campaspe residents not consuming enough of the food and drinks needed for good health and wellbeing, Mr Tarr said, which this initiative was working to tackle.
“Less than half of residents across the Loddon Campaspe region meet the recommended intake of fruits, just 13 percent meet the recommended intake of vegetables, 14 percent consume sugar-sweetened beverages daily, and two-thirds of the population are overweight or obese,” he said.
“Consequently, increasing healthy eating is a key objective of the Healthy Loddon Campaspe initiative, as well as a priority area set out within the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2019-2023.
“Sporting clubs and recreational facilities have been identified as a key setting within which changes can be made to make healthy food and drink choices the easy one.
“Our aim through the ‘Healthy SportsClubs’ project is to support local sporting clubs to offer healthy food and drinks which inturn aims to reduce obesity, improve healthy eating and reduce sugary and drink consumption.”
Central Goldfields Shire Healthy Kids advisor Ciel Lindley said the initiativewould support young people in particular to develop healthy life-long relationships with food.
“For the children who come here to train on a Thursday night, the meal they have here is their dinner and we want that to be nutritional,” she said.
“We want to set young people up with really healthy food relationships for life.”
Dunolly Football Netball Club secretaryand canteen manager Natalie Conlin saidthe club provides as many as 80 meals for young people at Thursday night training, and being able to provide healthier options was a plus.
“Every Thursday we do junior teas and every second Thursday we do both junior and senior meals,” she said.
“Even if we’re just doing toasties, we’re making 80 of them — we feed over 60 kids each Thursday on average.
“We started rolling out more healthier options this season with things like fruit salad as well as casseroles and that sort of thing which has been really good.”
Central Goldfields Shire mayor Grace La Vella said it was wonderful to see the communities of Dunolly and Carisbrook supported through the project.
“Thanks to the Victorian Government, the projects delivered by the Healthy Loddon Campaspe and the Healthy Kids Advisor initiatives, support communities like ours to help encourage healthy eating and getmore people, more active, more often,” she said.
“The Healthy Sports Clubs project provided an opportunity for our local clubs to explore the types of delicious healthy foods they can offer, as well as healthier ways to prepare it, as well as the kitchen equipment they need to do it.”