Nutrition For Life
Our Year 11s are fast approaching their time as the school’s leaders. With their new responsibilities and the learning demands of their final year, they are going to have to be mindful of their wellbeing. Nutrition is an essential element of that wellbeing.
Vanessa Carmody is our Deputy Head of Boarding and a qualified nutritionist. She spoke to the girls last week about nutrition, sleep, and exercise. The session highlighted where the girls could access ‘factual’ information about nutrition and how to identify when health information is misleading.
Vanessa provided time for questions and answers which was a successful ‘myth-busting’ session on how much to eat, when to eat, and what to eat. Some of the myths that were busted were:
- You shouldn’t eat carbohydrates after 8pm
- Carbohydrates make you put on weight
- You should only eat 1500 calories per day
- Green tea will help you lose weight
- Apple cider vinegar every day is good for weight loss
- Lemon in your water speeds up your metabolism
- Skipping breakfast is a good way to lose weight
- Intermittent fasting is the best diet
Vanessa strongly recommended the girls use the Australian Dietary guidelines as their source of truth for their nutrition advice and provided the girls with the opportunity to develop their own ‘eating for health’ plan.
This information was a timely reminder that in order to be able to be at their best for study as well as for their health, they needed to ensure that all elements were in balance. I know the girls enjoyed the session with Vanessa and we thank her for the time in putting this presentation together and sharing her expertise with the Year 11s.
Here’s what some of the Year 11s had to say about the presentation:
“Mrs Carmody’s presentation was good because it taught us all what is real versus what is fake. It allowed us to break down the myths presented on social media.” Asha Kempton
“It was interesting to visualise how much food we are able to eat and to learn about serving sizes recommended by the Australian Dietary Guidelines. As well as learning about what is ‘truthy’ and what’s a fact.” Georgia Mack
“I really enjoyed learning about the different serving sizes and all about healthy eating for your body and not only for your image.” Justine Harris
What stuck with me were the ‘facts’ that are actually not true, I was really shocked as I always thought green tea had so many weight-loss benefits but is just hot water with tea leaves. Indiana Montgomery
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Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
