Healthier Communities

The communities in which we live can have a real impact on our health.

Healthy People = Vibrant Communities

Community groups, services and local businesses can all make easy changes to promote healthy eating and physical activity.

Help Make Your Community a Healthy Community

Whether you are a council, community group or centre, service club, sporting club, hospitality business, food outlet, large or small business, there are plenty of ways you can boost your community’s health and vibrancy through healthy eating and physical activity.

Look at the tools and information in this section and choose what suits your community, group, service or business. Small changes can make a big difference.

Healthy Eating

  • providing healthy catering at meetings and functions. Have a healthy catering policy and make healthy catering a specification with contract caterers
  • providing healthy food choices in organisations that have on-site canteens and vending machines
  • promoting healthy fundraisers and limiting unhealthy fundraising items
  • providing a clean and comfortable meal break area and facilities that enable staff to prepare healthy food and drink choices at work (e.g. providing a fridge, microwave, toaster, kettle, cutlery, crockery, and access to cold tap water for drinking).

Breastfeeding

  • supporting breastfeeding for mothers (staff and visitors) in the workplace
  • provide a breastfeeding friendly place on site
  • support the Breastfeeding Welcome Here program for any and all premises, from cafes, to hairdressers, to libraries.

Physical Activity

  • incentives for staff and volunteers to be physically active at work including taking public transport
  • encouraging staff to think ‘feet first’ by walking or cycling to meetings where possible
  • encouraging staff and volunteers to use public transport to and from work and/or to incorporate active travel as part of the journey to work
  • consider a bike pool to use for work-related meetings
  • support staff and volunteers to ride to work by providing secure storage bikes safely, and change room facilities for staff to encourage physical activity before, during or after work
  • establish a walking group or pedometer challenge at your organisation
  • providing flexible work stations e.g. sit-stand desks, standing meetings, walk and talk meetings, standing while on the telephone, taking regular breaks to avoid sitting for long periods, walking to talk to colleagues instead of emailing them etc.

Your Organisation can Also Consider

  • implementing a workplace health and wellbeing program
  • not accepting sponsorship that relates to unhealthy foods, drinks, tobacco and inactive lifestyles
  • setting up or maintaining a community garden
  • being a smoke-free site
  • ensuring responsible serving of alcohol, where relevant
  • developing a workplace response to alcohol and other drug issues.

Join us to Help Make a Difference

Be inspired by other South Australian organisations who are