Embrace Food: The future of food and nutrition education for Secondary Schools

Session Description

After recent changes to the Victorian Curriculum to remove BMI measurement, calorie counting and food diaries from Health and Physical Education, teachers across Australia started saying the same thing: Just give us what you want us to teach instead! In this session, you will be among the first to see inside Embrace Food, the program that The Embrace Collective has been developing to redefine nutrition education in secondary schools. Dr Zali Yager is one of Australia's leading body image researchers and Co-Executive Director of The Embrace Collective alongside 2023 Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt. Drawing on the latest evidence, this session will explore why restriction-based content, including lessons built around traditional approaches such as calories, BMI and food diaries, can inadvertently increase risk for vulnerable young people. Participants will be introduced to a new, evidence-based framework for teaching food and nutrition in Years 7 to 10 Health and Physical Education. The approach is strengths-based, inclusive and designed to build positive relationships with food in a safe and supportive way. The session will also showcase the Embrace Food resources: curriculum-aligned, video-based nutrition education lessons developed specifically for Australian HPE teachers that are practical, engaging and easy to implement. No diaries. No calorie tracking. No BMI. Just practical content that helps students understand food as fuel for the things they want to do and the life they want to live.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the evidence base for avoiding weight-centric nutrition education and the potential negative mental and physical health outcomes this can lead to for adolescents.
• Describe the frameworks and key messages for safe and inclusive food and nutrition education.
• Identify the strengths-based teaching practices that protect students' body image, mental health, and relationship with food they can use in their HPE programming.
• Know how to access evidence-based, curriculum-aligned nutrition education programs and resources developed for Australian secondary schools.

Curriculum Level

7 - 10

Keywords

Food and Nutrition

Presentation Type

Practical Workshop
A
12