Being Active, Eating Well: A Resource for ACTION in Peel!

Help Your School Take Action - Creating Healthy Opportunities

Staff Health

Your school's staff are role models for the students in your school. However, the many challenges during the day that teachers and other staff deal with make it hard to eat well, get enough physical activity and manage stress.

This section offers some basic steps and tips schools can use to fit staff health info their busy schedules.

Four Steps to Addressing Staff Health

Step 1: Obtain support from your principal.

Leadership and continuing support from your principal are important. Staff will be more likely to make healthy choices when they have the opportunity and time to do so and when they know that the administration is supportive of their health initiatives.

Step 2: Find out what staff need.

A needs assessment or staff survey will help you identify areas that staff would like to work on. It's easier to develop a plan and gain support from your principal once you've identified common interests and needs.

Step 3: Develop a plan.

Staff health is a long-term commitment, so just take it one step at a time! For example, start a lunchtime walking group with whoever is interested and available or begin offering only healthy snacks at staff meetings.

Step 4: Evaluate your plan.

This will help to improve your original plan, justify any resources that have been provided and show results to other staff that may be interested.

Getting Active

During staff meetings, take "active" breaks by walking through the halls or outside around the school.
Try these stretches during meeting breaks or other times in the day.
Encourage staff to make use of the public recreation centres and private fitness facilities available in the Region of Peel.

Increasing Health Awareness

Talk to your principal about providing time during the school day, such as "release time", so staff members can participate in health-promoting activities like workshops, seminars and forums.
Encourage and remind staff to make medical appointments for the screening of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other health concerns.
Find out if your School Board offers an Employee Assistance Plan.

Snacks and Beverages

Consider these nutrition standards for foods and beverages at meetings, potluck dinners, and catered events.

Snacks

Provide whole grain crackers and lower-fat cheese (20% M.F. or less) for cheese and cracker trays.
Offer whole fruit, a fruit tray, dried fruit, fruit salad and/or 100% fruit juices.
Provide lower-fat granola bars, 100% fruit bars and/or cereal bars.
When serving vegetables and dip, try dips made with yogurt or low-fat sour cream.
Serve low-fat yogurt (2% M.F. or less) in various flavours.
Serve nuts and seeds or dried fruit in small cups.*

Beverages

Make sure water is available (jugs and/or bottled water) along with other beverages.
Provide 100% fruit and/or vegetable juices in addition to coffee and teas.
Offer 2%, 1%, skim and/or chocolate milk.
Provide milk in addition to cream for coffee and tea.

Sample Menus

Snack A	Snack B
Assorted low fat muffins	Bagels with low fat flavoured and plain cream cheeses
Fruit tray (strawberries, pineapple, oranges, grapes, etc.)	100% fruit juice (apple, orange, grapefruit, etc.), water
Milk (white or chocolate), water	Yogurt in various flavours
Optional: coffee, tea	Optional: coffee, tea

*Please be aware of any food allergies or needs (e.g., vegetarian) among your colleagues or group.

Potluck or Catered Events

Breakfast | Sandwiches | Soups/Salads
Mains | Desserts

Breakfast

Offer grain products such as whole grain breads/toast, lower fat muffins, whole grain or plain bagels.
Provide fruits such as whole fruit, fruit tray, dried fruit, fruit salad and/or 100% fruit juices.
Make available lower fat milk products like yogurt (2% M.F. or less), lower fat cheeses (20% M.F. or less), and/or milk (2% M.F. or less).
Offer meat alternatives such as hard boiled eggs, and/or peanut butter* for toast/muffins/bagels.
Make butter, margarine, low-fat cream cheese, peanut butter*, etc. available on the side.

Sandwiches

Offer sandwiches on an assortment of whole grain breads, rolls, pitas, wraps, etc.
Use lower fat sandwich fillings such as tuna, salmon, lean roast beef, turkey, chicken, ham, or lower fat cheese (20% M.F. or less). Make sure to include vegetarian fillings like grilled vegetables, or offer "make your own" sandwiches with some vegetable choices.
If serving "make your own" sandwiches, offer mayonnaise, butter and margarine on the side. Include other condiments such as mustard.
If sandwiches are catered, ask that some be made with little or no mayonnaise, butter or margarine.

Soups/Salads

Provide broth-based soups or soups made with milk instead of cream-based soups.
Consider legume-based soups like lentil or black bean.
Order green salads made with spinach, romaine lettuce or leaf lettuce rather than iceberg lettuce.
Have salad dressings served on the side and offer both lower fat and regular options.
For catered salads, consider asking for lower fat dressings for potato or macaroni salad, coleslaw or marinated salads.
When serving vegetables and dip, ask for dips made with yogurt or low-fat sour cream.

Mains

Consider dishes made with grains such as rice, couscous, quinoa, barley, noodles or pasta.
Include at least one vegetarian selection for lunch or dinner. Try entrees made from beans, lentils, dried peas or tofu.
Choose meat, fish, poultry and vegetable dishes that are broiled, roasted, baked or steamed instead of fried.
Consider more international dishes such as Italian pasta primavera, Moroccan stew, Mexican vegetable enchiladas, Spanish paella, Asian stir-fries, South Asian curries or Provençal ratatouille.

Desserts

Offer fresh fruit or fruit salad.
Choose lower fat yogurts (2% M.F. or less).
Provide whole grain and lower fat cookie options such as oatmeal, gingerbread, fuit-filled cookies, (fig, raspberry, apple, etc.).
Offer lower-fat quick breads (carrot, zucchini, banana, pumpkin), cakes (angel food) or muffins.

*Please be aware of any food allergies or needs (e.g., vegetarian) among your colleagues or group.

Online Resources

The Region of Peel's Account for HEALTH
Browse the "Healthy Eating" and "Be Active" sections for fast and easy ways to make healthy choices at work every day.

Dietitians of Canada
Use the EATracker to track your food and activity choices; explore the Virtual Kitchen and Virtual Grocery Store.

Healthy Measures
Offers healthy measures women can take to improve their health rather than decreasing their weight. Includes a self assessment quiz, affirmations, tip sheets and a progress monitoring chart.

Staff Wellness Sessions: Survey

Our Staff Wellness Sessions survey will help you determine the activities your staff are interested in. PDF Document (1 page, 14 KB. To save the pdf, use your mouse to right click over the link and choose the 'Save Target As...' option). There is no protection on this pdf, so using Adobe Acrobat, you can customize it for your needs.

We've highlighted the areas to insert your school's name and other specific information. Presentations from Peel Health are also available on a number of topics; please contact your school public health nurse or call the Region of Peel 905-799-7700.

Sample Survey:

Your answers to this survey will help us determine which sessions will run on the Early Dismissal Day (insert month or date). A dollar sign ($) indicates there might be a small fee for materials. There's time to allow everyone to participate in two sessions of approximately 50 minutes each.

Please rank your top 5 choices:

1 = first choice; 2 = second choice etc.

__ Paper Tole ($)

__ Trivial Pursuit game/cards

__ Pilates

__ Basketball

__ Line Dancing

__ Learning Massage

__ Resistance Training

__ Self Defence

__ Yoga

__ Tai Chi