General | Alberta | Ontario | British Columbia | Prince Edward Island
General
This guide provides tips and suggestions for food choices (i.e., limiting highly processed foods, using food labels) and eating habits (i.e., cooking more often, eating with others). Learn more about healthy eating recommendations and healthy food choices. Additionally, access the easily digestible diagram of what constitutes a healthy diet available in different languages. Raise awareness among students by posting this diagram on communication walls or including it as part of your weekly announcements.
Farm to Cafeteria Canada – Farm to School Canada
Farm to school brings healthy, local food into schools, and promotes food literacy among students while strengthening the local food system and enhancing school and community connectedness. Farm to School looks different for each school. Consider offering a salad bar to provide your students with the option to consume fruits and vegetables and enhance the learning experience by connecting the salad bar to a school garden or farm visit. Don’t have the funds for a salad bar? Visit the Farm to School Canada Grants website for more information on available grants. Also, check Growing a Movement document (Pdf) for examples of schools that improved healthy eating behaviours in their students and tips to get started in your own school.
Health Canada – heathy eating during the COVID-19 pandemic
The 'healthy eating during the COVID-19 pandemic guide' aims to promote mindful and healthy eating among students and their families. Within this guide, tips on healthy eating, eating habits and meal planning during the COVID-19 pandemic are provided. There are also recommendations for healthy meal and snack ideas, as well as how to choose healthier takeout options.
National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) – toolkits
NEDA toolkits are free resources designed to educate on eating disorders. Different toolkits have been developed for parents, educators, and coaches and athletic trainers. Each toolkit provides information on eating disorder signs and symptoms, medical consequences, treatments, and ways to support students and athlete students who might be dealing with eating disorders. Consider sharing these toolkits with parents, care givers, and school educators and staff.
Physical and Health Education (PHE) Canada – healthy eating education activities
The healthy eating education activities equips students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to identify, prepare, and choose healthy food and healthy eating options. Scroll down to grade seven to 12 to explore at-home or at-school activities.
World Health Organization - food and nutrition tips during self-quarantine
This resource aims to promote healthy eating for individuals quarantining or self-isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic. This webpage contains food and nutrition tips such as making a meal plan, eating home-cooked meals, controlling salt, sugar, and alcohol intake, and buying affordable, accessible, and long-lasting ingredients. A few examples of nutritious recipes that need simple ingredients are also provided. You can also read the WHO fact sheet on healthy diet on practical advice to maintain a healthy diet.
Action for Healthy Kids – Rethink your Drink
Hosting a ‘rethink your drink campaign’ can educate students about the amounts of sugar present in commonly consumed beverages and their impact on health. This campaign can be implemented in school or at home to encourage children to make healthier beverage choices and drink more water. This website provides different ways to complete this campaign, along with additional resources such as lesson plans, activities, and games.
Alberta
Alberta Nutrition Guidelines for Children and Youth (Pdf)
This resource, developed by the Government of Alberta, aims to assist Albertans to create an environment which provides and promotes healthy food choices and healthy attitudes about food. On a practical level, the guidelines will help Albertans to recognize and apply the concepts of healthy eating in a consistent way, so that children will have access to nutritious foods wherever they go. This resource can be shared with educators, parents, and care givers for tips on healthy food choices and healthy eating.
Ontario
Community Garden Council of Region of Waterloo – gardens for healthy schools (Pdf)
The 'Gardens for heathy schools' document provides a recent scan of school gardens in Waterloo Region. Moreover, information about the impact of school gardens on students’ physical health, academic outcomes, and youth development is provided. You can read about how other schools started their school gardens and what students and staff experienced with school gardens. Interested schools can review the school food garden start-up guide (Pdf) for tips on how to start a new garden. Schools can also use food from their garden in their cafeteria, breakfast program, or student cooking classes.
British Columbia
Healthy Schools BC – Teach Food First toolkit
Teach Food First is an educator toolkit developed by the Ministry of Health and the BC Centre for Disease Control in partnership with public health dietitians, BC teachers, and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers. This toolkit focuses on using a food exploration approach to nutrition education that has been linked with long-term, positive eating attitudes and behaviors. This toolkit supports educators with best-practice approaches, resources, and lessons that (a) connect with Canada’s food guide and British Columbia Curriculum, (b) are grade-specific and age-appropriate, and (c) consider equity and cultural inclusivity.
Prince Edward Island
PEI School Food Program INC. - BON APETIT Program
The BON APETIT program is a provincial lunch program launched by the PEI School Food Program Inc that ensures healthy and affordable lunch options are made available to all PEI students from kindergarten to grade 12. Participating schools and students receive healthy and balanced school lunches and educational opportunities to develop their school’s food environment and literacy curriculum. Schools can order their meal selections online biweekly and make selections from a wide variety of meals.
PEI Public School Branch (PSB) - Nutrition in Schools Policy
The PEI Public School Branch has developed the Nutrition in Schools Policy to guide school communities in encouraging students, parents/guardians, and educators to make well-balanced and nutritious food and drink choices, through the development of a healthy school environment. Parents/guardians and educators can refer to PSB’s Guide to Food Choices and Nutrition in Schools Operational Procedures for information on how to guide youth in making conscientious choices regarding their food and drink consumption, as well as information regarding how to approach nutrition education and critically analyze food advertisements.
Bridge the gapp Youth - Eating Disorders
PEI Bridge the gap Youth is an online resource designed to support the mental wellness of youth by providing a service directory, a knowledge center, online programs, and a toolbox. Resources on this platform cover a variety of topics including but not limited to bullying, family, stress/anxiety, suicide prevention, healthy eating, and eating disorders. In the eating disorder section, topics such as “what is an eating disorder” and “how do I get help” are covered, and include videos and external resources.