Learn how school community members can support students in secondary schools (grades 9-12) nurture healthy eaters (2019).
Provide a Positive Eating Environment
- Provide eating environments around the school that encourage students to eat together and use mealtimes as a time to connect.
- Have casual conversation with students. Save nutrition education for the classroom instead of at mealtimes (for example, when eating together in a family studies class).
- Encourage students to limit screen time to be mindful of their eating habits.
Respect Natural Hunger & Fullness Cues
- Allow students to control their own intake and avoid pressuring students to eat a particular food
- Allow talking about dieting, restricting food intake or specifying portion sizes.
- Remind students that they are still growing and that they need to eat enough to support their activity and growth.
- Trust and respect students when they say or signal they are full or still hungry.
Build Trust with Students & Families
- Respect that many factors influence what foods students eat and that students have different health needs.
- Avoid commenting or making judgements about students’ food choices.
- Refer families to appropriate community resources and reliable nutrition information such as Telehealth Ontario (1-866-797-0000), Unlockfood.ca and Canada.ca/FoodGuide.
Teach Nutrition in a Positive Way
- Focus on the benefits of fuelling the mind and body with a variety of food.
- Keep all messages positive. Avoid negative/fear-based statements like “that food is not healthy.”
- Remind students that healthy eating is an overall pattern over time; no one food or meal defines our eating habits.
- Create practical opportunities to learn about, see, smell, touch, grow, cook, and try a variety of food.
- Focus on behaviours, such as regular meals, sleep and physical activity to feel good, not for weight control or appearance.
- Avoid weighing students, using weight tables or charts, or calorie counting activities.
- When using food in classroom lessons or school activities, choose foods from Canada’s Food Guide.
- Avoid using any food as a reward.
Promote Positive Body Image
- Be mindful of what you say and avoid sharing personal views about food, dieting and body weight.
- Teach about natural body diversity. Each person’s body is different, and we should respect, accept and celebrate these differences!
- Teach students how to look at media messages and stereotypes critically. There is no ‘ideal’ body and all bodies are worthy.
