St. Joseph's Primary School

St. Joseph’s, along with all other primary schools across the Gannawarra Shire, have encouraged children to get out and about walking, riding, skating and scooting to and from school or the school bus throughout October as part of the Gannawarra VicHealth Walk to School program.

Developing a sense of independence, connecting with friends and taking notice of the world around them provides important learning opportunities for children. Walking or riding to school, or the school bus, is a great way to start the day and arriving at school alert and ready to learn is an added bonus!

On Friday 30^th October a special event was held at the school to celebrate the benefits of living a healthy and active life.

Cr. Brian Gibson came along and launched the new Gannawarra Ride2School media clip and encouraged all students to continue to actively travel to and from school, or the school bus, as often as they can throughout the year. It’s a great way for children to establish life-long healthy habits. Learning about road rules and pedestrian safety is also really important with children encouraged to Stop, Look, Listen and Think!

Making choices that support an active and healthy life as children grow is also important and making the right choice can be a bit challenging in today’s age where marketing tricks make products appear healthier than they actually are. So, as part of the event, Tanya, a Community Health Nurse with Northern District Community Health led an interactive talk about sugar in food and drinks.

Sugar is essential for brains and bodies to receive the energy needed to function but getting this sugar from natural sources like apples and oranges is much better for us than getting sugar out of a bottle or packet. Did you know that 4 grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon? Students were encouraged to practice their maths by taking a closer look at drink labels and looking out for quantities. Even a small drink like a prima contains 5 teaspoons of sugar! We played a game of matching sugar bottles to drinks on a board. A 600ml bottle of Coke has 64 grams of sugar, Lift has 66 grams of sugar and Sunkist has 70.8 grams of sugar – that’s more than 18 teaspoons of sugar! Even an iced tea has almost 8 teaspoons and a Dare iced coffee more than 11 teaspoons!

The same of course applies to food. Don’t be tricked by words on the box or packet as food manufacturers are very tricky at making their product look like a healthy option. Words such as real fruit, yoghurt top, low fat, natural or healthy don’t necessarily mean that the product is a healthy option. Sometimes these foods contain more sugar than others that are similar – a yoghurt topped muesli bar for example has almost twice as much sugar as a plain muesli bar!

If we eat too much sugar and don’t use all that sugar during the day it converts to fat in the body and eventually may cause us to become overweight and lead to some nasty health issues like Diabetes and Heart Disease. Too much sugar makes us feel tired and lacking in energy so it’s important to eat a balanced diet based on the essential food groups – Fruit, Vegetables, Grains, Dairy and Meat.

Sugar feeds bacteria in our mouths and can lead to tooth decay so Tanya explained how to brush our teeth properly. A soft brush, a dob of fluoride toothpaste and two minutes morning and night is all that’s needed. A healthy mouth and teeth help us to feel confident, to speak and to chew. We only get two sets of teeth in a life-time so it’s important to look after them! Use small circular movements taking special care to clean the inside, outside and tops of teeth and those big molars at the back where food can get stuck. Brushing the tongue is also important to remove some of those germs and to keep our breath smelling fresh.

Karyl from Kerang District Health came along to talk about the importance of being active every-day. If we are active our bodies are fit and strong, we don’t get sick as often and sleep well at night. We are also more likely to be happy because exercise releases some beneficial chemicals into our bloodstreams that help us to feel good about ourselves. Karyl said it was great to see so many children out and about walking and riding in Kerang and showed the children easy, free and fun exercises to build up their muscle strength like bicep curls, shoulder lifts and stretching by doing push ups or working the large muscles in the legs by sliding slowly down a wall.

Karyl’s exercises were a great way to warm up for a walk around the block.

 

Back at the school we enjoyed a healthy fruit snack of watermelon, apples and bananas donated by Rocky’s Fruit and Vegetables Cohuna and juicy local oranges provided by Border Packers Koondrook. We also had yummy cold glasses of milk provided by Murray Milk or an icy cold cup of water.

 

 

The Gannawarra VicHealth Walk to School program is rolled out across the Gannawarra Shire as a Gannawarra Local Agency Meeting (GLAM) partnership project. This is a partnership between Gannawarra Shire Council, Northern District Community Health, Kerang District Health, Cohuna District Hospital, Mallee District Aboriginal Service, Victoria Police, with support from the Southern Mallee Primary Care Partnership.

Walk to School is a VicHealth initiative. For more information go to: www.walktoschool.vic.gov.au.