New action plans champion healthy living

Christchurch City Council has taken two important steps today towards promoting healthy lifestyle choices.

It has adopted both a Healthy Food Action Plan and a Smokefree Action Plan.

Christchurch City Council's Healthy Food Action Plan is aimed at making healthy food choices easier.

The Healthy Food Action Plan has been put together by Council staff, with input from the Community and Public Health team at the Canterbury District Health Board, and sets out 18 actions the Council, Community Board or community groups could take to help make healthy food choices easier.

Those actions include increasing the number of community gardens and edible plantings on public land, mapping all edible trees on public land, expanding the Edible Garden awards and trialing community fridges and other sharing initiatives.

The Smokefree Action Plan commits the Council to supporting the Government’s goal of having a smokefree nation by 2025 and builds on the Smokefree Public Places Policy the Council adopted in 2009.

That policy, which has been extended in recent years, discourages people from smoking at the main entrances and exits to Council-owned facilities and buildings, at bus shelters, at playgrounds, parks and reserves, and in Council-owned social housing.

New initiatives included in the Smokefree Action Plan include investigating smokefree outdoor dining on Council leased footpaths and supporting an annual smokefree campaign on World Smokefree Day, which is marked on May 31.

“A healthy community and environment are vital for a successful and thriving city and as a Council we want to do all we can to encourage people to make healthy lifestyle choices,’’ says Cr Phil Clearwater, Chair of the Council’s Social and Community Development Committee.

“We want to make it easier for people to eat healthily and do all we can to reduce the prevalence of smoking in the city because we know that eating unhealthily and smoking can significantly impact on people’s health and wellbeing.

“We want our children to grow up in a healthy environment and by adopting the Healthy Food Action Plan and the Smokefree Action Plan we’re taking steps to ensure that happens,’’ Cr Clearwater says.