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Healthy Living and Eating

A diet including fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains and dairy is healthy. Explore resources about the food pyramid, calories, essential nutrition, junk food, sugar drinks, exercise and the problems of lack of sleep and exercise. SCIS no. 1816229

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The adolescent diet

The key components for a healthy adolescent lifestyle.

Piripi Rikiti talks Māori eating habits.

Nutrigenomics and personalised food

The ideal diet depends on a person’s genetic make-up.

Pacific youth and threat of NCDs

Pacific youth and threat of NCDs

Pacific youth urged to adopt healthy eating to avoid non-communicable diseases.

Drink two litres of water a day?

According to an editorial published today in the Australian and New Zealand Public Health Journal, the recommendation to drink 8 glasses of pure water appears to be an over-estimation of requiremen...

This way up: food recycling

This way up: food recycling

This Way Up's Simon Morton discovers a food recycling project with a difference, Kaicycle.

Gardening with kids

Gardening with kids

Families from the Common Unity Project, which runs the community garden and kitchen at Epuni school, have joined up with organic juicy company, Almighty for a special event to promote gardening and...

Processing organic vegetables

Heinz Watties, a large food-processing company, encouraged many of its vegetable growers to convert to organic methods in the 1990s. This video clip shows organic potatoes and peas being prepared f...

School gardening programme expands

School gardening programme expands

The Garden to table programme has been enormously successful in teaching school children to grow, harvest and prepare seasonal fruit and vegetables. Now schools in other parts of the country will b...

Berry good news for the brain

Berry good news for the brain

How New Zealand blackcurrants can support brain health.

Skipping breakfast

Skipping breakfast

Skipping breakfast makes your brain seek out unhealthy foods.

Unlocking the energy in foods

How does energy stored in food molecules get released?

Sipreme: food of the future?

Sipreme: food of the future?

A powdered food is seen as the future for people who don't have time to cook.

Healthy kiwifruit

Healthy kiwifruit

A new study has found there could be more health benefits to eating kiwifruit than we first thought.

Article on a campaign for physical fitness and good health.

Department Of Health Posters

Department Of Health Posters

Children’s diet

A 1942 Children’s diet experiment in New Zealand.

Advocating vegetarianism

Advocating vegetarianism

Animal rights activists usually advocate a 'cruelty-free' diet – vegetarian (no flesh) or vegan (no flesh, eggs, honey or dairy products) – on the grounds that diets that contain these foods cause ...

Are vegetarian diets healthier?

Research about vegetarianism’s association with lower all-cause mortality.

Healthy eating becomes dangerous

Healthy eating becomes dangerous

Jordan Younger’s obsession with healthy eating lifestyle turns into an eating disorder.

Government agencies and fast food

More than $260 million of taxpayers' money is invested in fast-food brands and soft drink giants, outraging health campaigners.

The Needn't food list

Needn't foods and their lower calorie replacements.

Nutrition experts in American Samoa alarmed

Nutrition experts at American Samoa's LBJ Hospital say the increase in fast food restaurants and the advertising of unhealthy food is alarming. The territory now has four United States fast...

Food labelling move

Food labelling move

The Greens are welcoming the government's move to stop manufacturers making false or misleading claims about food products.

Tax on fatty food and sugary drinks urged

Health experts are calling for fatty food and sugary drinks to be taxed in the same way tobacco products are in New Zealand.

HealthEd resources

HealthEd resources

Health resources in various languages to support New Zealand communities.

Battlegrounds

Cartoon showing past and present battlegrounds for New Zealand. Then the battlegrounds were Greece, Crete, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Italy. Now the battlegrounds are nicotine, alcohol, obesity, su...

Price of milk - junk food

Price of milk - junk food

Digital cartoon by Laurence Clark on political and social issues in New Zealand. Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).

Fat

Cartoon depicts a huge little boy labelled 'Kiwi kids' being inflated with air by his parents using a foot pump labelled 'Junk food'. Refers to New Zealand Medical Association report on the soarin...

The Vegetable market

The Vegetable market

The vegetable markets in Florence were beautiful ... we bought the sweetest strawberries seduced by their smell!

Vegetable seed packets, 1932

Vegetable seed packets, 1932

Most of the vegetables on the seed packets depicted in a Yates' catalogue in 1932 were widely grown in the 19th century – the cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, beetroot and onion for instance. Less com...

School vegetables

School vegetables

Kate Robinson and Thomas Lancaster water the silverbeet at Pukekohe East Primary School. Their school serves a semi-rural community on the edge of Pukekohe. In 2005 it won an Enviroschool Award for...

Fruit in schools

Fruit in schools

The Fruit in Schools programme started in 2006. It was a response to the 2002 Child Nutrition Survey, which found that only 40% of children ate the recommended servings of fruit a day (two pieces)....

Apple

Children playing at Newtown kindergarten

Children playing at Newtown kindergarten

Photograph taken for the Evening Post newspaper of Wellington by an unidentified staff photographer. Quantity: 1 b&w original negative(s). Physical Description: Cellulosic film negative, 6.5 x 6....

Health camps

Many New Zealanders considered their days at the beach to be a highpoint of childhood. So, the Children’s Health Camp movement located a number of their camps close to a beach, where children could...

Photographs of children playing games

Photographs of children playing games

Photographs of children playing games, West Coast Region. Arrangement: These files were originally delivered to the library within a folder called "Events (kids games)" Quantity: 196 digital phot...

Keeping children healthy

Keeping children healthy

Wellington High School girls perform physical drills, 1901

Tuberculosis vaccinations for children

Tuberculosis vaccinations for children

A mother has coaxed her four children into taking the tuberculosis (TB) vaccination.

Maltexo, the great strength food

Maltexo, the great strength food

Maltexo was manufactured by the Wilson Malt Extract Company Ltd at Willowbank Dunedin. This ‘strength’ food was available in three varieties: plain, with genuine cod liver oil, with halibut oil and...

School girls drinking milk

School girls drinking milk

The first Labour government started a programme to supply free milk to schools from 1937 to 1967. Milk monitors would distribute a half-pint of milk to each student. By 1940 this programme covered ...

Health education specialists

Health education specialists

Generally speaking, Health Education specialists work with individuals and communities to improve or maintain good health with the help of advice, programmes and health resources.

It's what we've been waiting for...

It's what we've been waiting for...

These rugby players have just come back from pre-season training where players have experienced vigorous training and a special nutritious diet to peak fitness and sustain it.

People choose food based on religion, culture, location, intolerance or allergies.

Statistics concerning healthy eating in New Zealand.

Tips for food safety

Follow the 3Cs – clean, cook and chill food to keep safe from bugs.

These nutrient-packed foods can help you fight disease and feel more energetic.

Body mass index

Calculate your body mass index using your height and weight.

A gallery of items related to healthy living for children.

Recipes to make breakfast an essential meal to start the day.

A brief history of the pyramid

The evolution of the Healthy Eating Pyramid.

Measuring calories in food

Lesson plan to help students understand the concept of calories and food.

What is an allergy and other related information?

5 ways to a healthy lifestyle

Making healthy choices for a healthy lifestyle.

Healthy eating for all ages

Healthy and balanced diets required at different times of our lives.

Crunch the numbers

Standard –based maths lesson plans to make fruits and vegetables a part of healthy living.

Growing food in the city

Edible plants in Christchurch public parks and reserves expand the future of community food in the city.

Are you drinking plenty?

Poster and drinking chart for children to calculate water intake.

Eating & drinking

What we eat and drink has a big impact on our general health.

Healthy eating guides, tips and food safety measures.

Fruit and vegetables in the classroom

Print and digital resources and lesson plans covering healthy diets and food technology.

Five bad eating habits to break

Bad eating habits to think about changing.

Build a healthy eating lifestyle by making smart changes to your diet.

What the world eats

Photographs documenting that most basic of human behaviours—what we eat.

Diabetes overview

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are lifelong conditions. Long term risks can be minimised for children.

What happens one hour after eating a big mac?

A summary of the ingredients of the Big Mac and their effects on your body.

The 16 best healthy, edible plants to grow indoors

You don’t need to be a farmer to home grow produce.

Negative effects of junk food

Junk food affects weight and other factors that structure children’s development.

What the world eats

Consumptions patterns of different counties of the world.

Top 10 worst foods for kids to eat

Many foods specifically manufactured for and marketed to children are lacking in nutrients.

Teach every child about food

Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

What does organic mean and why should we eat organic?

Northland kids teeth

Northland kids teeth among New Zealand’s worse.

Food and nutrition guidelines

Food and nutrition guidelines for healthy children and young people.

Foods kids can grow in the garden

Useful tips to get kids to grow the food they need to eat.

Healthy kids quiz

Reckon you keep yourself fit and healthy?

A bike is a great way to get fit.

What happens one hour after drinking a can of coke

When somebody drinks a can of Coke or any similar sugary caffeine drink, watch what happens…

Getting schooled in the garden

School gardens are blossoming across the country.

Sport and children

We need to foster a more sports-minded culture that encourages children to be physically active.

20 Foods bad for your health

There is a lot of confusion out there about which foods are healthy, and which are not.

5 Reasons girls should play sport

According to the Women's Sports Foundation, girls who play sports get a lot more than just fit.

Eating disorders

Types of eating disorders, the causes and symptoms.

Garden to table

The Garden to Table programme aims to teach growing and cooking skills, collective responsibility for the environment, and healthy eating .

The food that we call sugar is a carbohydrate.

Vegetarian - it's more than not eating meat

There are really 6 forms of vegetarian eating.

For a healthier nation.

For a healthier nation.

This flier by the New Zealand Department of Health compares a pale, thin boy with a sturdy one. Lots of milk, protein and lentils are part of a healthy diet. But interestingly there is no mention o...

Public school hygiene

Public school hygiene

According to this article a head teacher was required to make a medical and physical examination of children in public schools. The head teacher could also ask parents to provide any necessary medi...

How to be youthful at 100

How to be youthful at 100

Dr Robert Bell was on the right track with his theory that cooking destroys the value of food. That was over a hundred years ago!

Sugar and health

Current evidence on sugar consumption, metabolism and health effects.

A poster showing essential food groups and the appropriate servings.

Unhealthy lunches

Unhealthy lunches marketed to school children.

Advertising card for 1967 Health stamps.

Healthy gut bacteria

Good bacteria play important roles in nutrient digestion, vitamin synthesis, energy metabolism and immune responses.

Make a snack bar

Students make an appealing snack bar while understanding that energy from food components should match energy needs.