{"id":18099,"date":"2017-08-17T11:33:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18099"},"modified":"2017-08-17T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:38:19","slug":"hungry-kids-and-adults-get-healthy-options-at-local-rec-centres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hungry-kids-and-adults-get-healthy-options-at-local-rec-centres\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungry kids \u2013 and adults \u2013 get healthy options at local rec centres"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019ve just finished a few lengths in the pool, perfected a half-pipe, or wrapped up your cardio routine on the treadmill, chances are you\u2019ve worked up a good, healthy appetite, but now there are healthier options available at local recreation centres to satisfy your hunger pangs.
\nAurora launched its Power Boost menu last week, an initiative of the Healthy Kids Community Challenge\u2019s \u201cChoose to Boost Veggies and Fruit\u201d initiative.
\nDeveloped in conjunction with the Town of Aurora, the Power Boost menu will give users of the Aurora Family Leisure Complex fresh and healthy alternatives to the standard Pepsi, candy and chips, including veggies and dip, hummus and crackers, fruit smoothies, yogurt and granola cafes, and even whole fruit.
\nA pilot project, the menu will be available to patrons of all ages through October.
\n\u201cWe did a survey a couple of years ago asking the community how they felt about the food options at recreation centres and we had a large response saying they would love to see more healthy options and it made sense to have that in a kind of space where kids are doing physical activities and coming in and out,\u201d says Kathleen Koh, Program Coordinator for the Healthy Kids Community Challenge.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to encourage kids to eat more veggies and fruit every day with all their meals and snacks. Working with the Town, it just made sense. It is a hub of activity, families are always coming and going, and it is a great place to foster healthy behaviours. We have done a lot of work with the schools, so it is nice to have a community setting to try something like this and have a pilot highlighting healthy options.\u201d
\nThe Healthy Kids Community Challenge is a multi-year multi-municipality program administered locally by Windfall Ecology Centre.
\nSince its launch, the program has gone through three phases, the first being \u201cRun, Jump and Play\u201d focusing on physical activity, the second centred on promoting water as vital to health and an alternative to sugary drinks, and currently veggies and fruit.
\nOver the last several months, the Healthy Kids Community Challenge has taken their programs out into the community, particularly at schools where they have helped them launch school nutrition programs and provide support for their continuation. They have also spearheaded programming around fruits and veggies to make them a little bit more exciting to younger Aurorans.
\n\u201cWhen you present it in a fun and colourful way, it is engaging and they don\u2019t think of fruit and veggies as a chore,\u201d says Ms. Koh. \u201cKids are really open to being healthy and it is just a matter of giving them those opportunities.\u201d
\nEnter: Power Boost.
\nThe development of the Power Boost menu was very much a collaborative process, she says, which included an assist from York Region Public Health and the food service company providing snack services at the municipal building. Working together, they developed a process of looking at what menu options worked in other communities, hammered out what might be popular, and devised some variety.
\n\u201cWe wanted to start off with a few items and not have it be too overwhelming, so it was a matter of narrowing down not only what was most popular, but what was feasible for the snack stand space in terms of what they have to prepare and making sure all those options are fresh and healthy,\u201d says Ms. Koh.
\nThe menu received the thumbs-up from Mayor Geoff Dawe at Wednesday\u2019s launch, who said he was \u201cpleased\u201d that the Healthy Kids Community Challenge has helped bring these options \u201cfront and centre to let people know there are options in terms of non-sugary drinks and non-sugary snacks.\u201d
\nHe also gave a shout-out to Sport Aurora who have been long-time proponents for a move such as this. In fact, they delegated to Council over a year ago to take matters one-step further by eliminating all sugary drinks and snacks entirely from recreation spaces.
\nAlthough that is still a ways away, if at all, former Sport Aurora president Ron Weese hailed the Power Boost menu as \u201ca step in the right direction.\u201d
\n\u201cI am really thankful to the Town and the Healthy Kids Community Challenge for taking this step,\u201d said Mr. Weese in his Activate Aurora capacity. \u201cOur group is more interested in doing the physical activity side of advocacy, but as many people realise you can\u2019t solve one problem with one solution; there are multiple solutions and this is one of those solutions about providing a healthy environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether you\u2019ve just finished a few lengths in the pool, perfected a half-pipe, or wrapped up your cardio routine on the treadmill, chances are you\u2019ve worked up a good, healthy appetite, but now there are healthier options available at local recreation centres to satisfy your hunger pangs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2017-08-17-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4HV","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 13:59:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}