Advocacy In Child CareChildren’s Health & Well-Being

Group Members:Rubina, Angela, Madonna, Tayiba, Jing, Niro

Healthy Lifestyle

Advocacy Statement

We truly believe that children’s health and well-being in the early year of a child has a profound impact on his or her future development. Children’s health and well-being is an issue for our group because we are going to be Early Childhood Educators and we are there the first few years of a child’s life. The way the children eat and exercise are important to a child’s future health and development.  Early Childhood Educator also plays a significant role to prevent a child’s health issues, provide support and promote healthy growth among young children in child care centers. We need to bring awareness of children’s health and well-being to parents, children and community in order to prevent the future health risks.

Stakeholders

YMCAWebsite: http://www.ymcagta.org/en/who-we-are/our-vision/index.html

Boys and Girls Clubs of Toronto NetworkWebsite: http://www.boysandgirlsclubsoftoronto.com/ 

Sick KidsWebsite: http://www.sickkids.ca/search/search.aspx

Health CanadiansWebsite: http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/index-eng.php

City of Toronto Healthy Babies Healthy ChildrenWebsite: http://www.toronto.ca/health/healthybabieshealthychildren/index.htm/

Good Life Kids Foundation Website: http://www.toronto.ca/health/healthybabieshealthychildren/index.htm/  

Family service Toronto Growing up Healthy DowntownWebsite: http://www.familyservicetoronto.org/programs/guhd.html

Three Types of Research

Conduct Surveys Internet Research Conduct Interviews

Survey Questions Statistics

20.00%1-2 h/w

28.00% Never

24.00%Never 14.00%

Never

50.00%3-4 h/w

70.00% 1-4

times/w66.00%

1-2 times/w 58.00%

1-2times/w

30.00%5 or more

h/w

2.00% 5-7 times/w 8.00% 3-4

times/w10.00%

3-4 time/w

2.00% 5 or more8.00%

Don’t Know

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

TV Soft Drink Fast Food Physical Exercise

Series4

Series3

Series2

Series1

Research Summary

Parent Lifestyles Stress levels Smoking/drug addiction Social Activity Culture Relatioships Social Activity Parenting style Work

Screen Time-TV

A number of research point out the negative effect of TV programs Diet Overweight Health issues

A number of research point out the positive effect of TV programs Brain development Healthy habits

Research Summary (cont.)

Video games

Advantages of video games Disadvantages of video games

Advertising Child- targeted ads are unhealthy 37% children’s advertisements are food advertisements and 98% of them are unhealthy Concerns regarding ads

Research Summary (cont.)

ECE roles and responsibilities

Children spend most time with educators Lesson plans Role model ECEs need to be knowledgeable about content on community programs

Fast Foods Poor nutrition Overweight Serious Health diseases Addictive food to children Brain development Shorten life spans

Interview with Nutritionist Questions & answers

Date: Mar 18, 2013Time: 9:35pmInterviewer: Angela MaInterviewee: Jessica Chen - Nutritionist icyflower48@hotmail.com

How parents support children eat healthy?

From my thoughts, these are general things I think would help parents to support their children in healthy eating. Be role models in healthy eating, be involved together as a family in meals, eat together, Involve them in cooking healthy foods, Shop for healthy snacks, have treats in moderation, be active with the children, develop healthy habits early on, and educate your children on healthy eating

What is your recommendation for daily intake of calories, fat, sodium, carbon hydrate, etc. for a child at different age 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12?

Males Females

Age

(years)

Energy EER

(kcal/day)

Age

(years)

Energy EER

(kcal/day)

0-0.5 570 0-0.5 520

0.5-1 743 0.5-1 676

1-3 1046 1-3 992

4-8 1742 4-8 1642

9-13 2279 9-13 2071

14-18 3152 14-18 2368

Interviewer: Niro A.Interviewee: (Name). The Manager of Tim HortonsLocation: 720 Warden Ave., EDate: March 16, 2013

How much or how many Timbits sold out a day? Approximately 300 Timbits sold out a day.

Any nutrition fact people can check for nutrition about product -Horton's Tim donut or timbits?

People can check nutrition about product, because Tim Horton’s have nutrition guide.but they never ask nutrition guide to buy donut or Timbits.

Which one is the healthiest product for children at Tim Horton’s?Milk, apple juice and orange juice.

Have people challenged Tim Horton’s' products for healthy or not? e.g.: ask for nutrition facts?

Some people ask nutrition guide to check the foods. But they didn’t ask nutrition guide to check children foods.

What kind of products children like in Tim Horton’s?Timbits, donut, hot chocolate, French vanilla, cookies.

Interview with Manager-Tim HortonsQuestions & answers

Family Channel

Action Plan

Facebook BrochureYMCA Event McDonald’s Family Channel

Action Plan-1

Facebook

Action Plan- 2YMCA Event-Greensborough YMCA,

March 8, 2013

Children learn what is healthy and non healthy mostly from their peers or educators. Some children spend most of their day in childcares and schools. We believe that the learning about what is healthy and what activities can promote good physical health, should be taught by ECEs or teachers. This way, the children bring what they have learned to their household and they can give their knowledge about healthy lifestyles to their parents and caregivers.

YMCA provides before and after school care for Kindergartens and school agers. Since we believe that children should learn about healthy living lifestyles from teachers and Early Childhood Educators, we decided to do one of our actions in a YMCA childcare centre. We brought in some materials that can provide the children with physical activities. Some activities we did include Soccer, Octopus and hula hoops. These activities we implemented had the children using their gross motor skills. We also decided to teach the children about healthy eating. We had the children categorize which food they thought were healthy and had them categorize the items into food groups. It was surprising to see that some children thought cake and other food were healthy.

YMCA Event

Pictures of the “YMCA EVENT”

Donation

Nutrition Activity

Physical-Indoor Activity Physical-outdoor Activity

Nutrition Activity

Action Plan- 3 Brochure for Community

Action Plan-4Advocacy Letter to McDonald’s

47, 2830 Midland Avenue

Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1S 1S4

McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited1 McDonald's PlaceToronto, Ontario, CanadaM3C 3L4

March 25, 2013

To Whom It May Concern:Re: Customer Relation

On behalf of my advocacy group, I am writing this letter to you with regards of children’s health and well-being. AsEarly Childhood Educators, we truly believe that nutrition in the early year of a child has a profound impact on their future development. In fact, McDonald’s is a well-known fast food restaurant that influences millions of children every day. In these years, we have realized that the choice of Happy Meals has been improved with a goal of promoting health and nutrition. However, when considering food and nutrition guidelines from Ministry of Health in Canada, the food choices are still unhealthy for children because the food items are filled with preservatives and other chemicals that prevent decomposition. In addition, nutrition facts should be clearly labeled on all food packages that help customers to understand their daily intake. Frankly, any food experiences in children’s daily life should not be underestimated. We believe that all children have the right of having adequate nutrition for their health and parents have the right to see their child growing healthy. Hence, we strongly recommend that McDonald’s playing a significant role in fast food industry should be taking children’s health and well being as a very first concern. Please take further action to continuously improve the nutrition values in the food choices and take your social responsibility to support a healthy community.

Looking forward to hearing from you.Sincerely yours,Angela Ma

Action Plan-5Advocacy Letter to Family Channel

19, White Heather Blvd,Scarborough, Ontario

M1V 2P8Family ChannelBrookfield Place181 Bay Street, PO Box 787Toronto, OntarioM5J 2T3

March 31, 2013To whom it may concern:

On behalf of my advocacy group, I am writing this letter to you with regards of children’s health and well- being. As early childhood educators ,we truly believe that nutrition and physical activity in the early year of a child has a profound impact on their future development.In fact, Family.ca is a well known TV channel that influences million of children every day. As we know, most young children spend their time watching TV more than 2 hours per day. In these years, we have realized that the children shows of Family.ca have been improved with a goal of promoting social relationship. However, when considering physical health to children, the children shows are still not good enough to promote healthy lifestyles such as how to select healthy food and physical exercises. A number of researches indicate that children overexposed to TV have already influenced their physical activity level and daily diets that become one of major effect on children’s health issue. We believed that all children have the right of having adequate physical activities for their health and parents have the right to see their child growing healthy. Hence, we strongly recommended that Family.ca should be taking children health and well being as a very first concern when playing a significant role in broadcast industry. We, as Early Childhood Educators, would like to see the hours of children shows can be minimized during after school hours and sincerely request that Family.ca should consider children’s healthy living as your further production plan. Please take your social responsibility to support a healthy community.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours, Niroja Anandarajah

Follow-Up Plan

Donation for strong kids walk every year Go for walk Date: May 2 2013 Location: Any YMCA

centres every year Keep update information on face book Follow up their response and keep update information

from McDonald’s Follow up their response and keep update information

from Family Channel

Thank You