Publications and resources
Back to topPolicy examples
Nutrition & physical activity policy
SPARC Wellness policy
Back to topFood and nutrition guidelines
Eating for Healthy Adult New Zealanders
Provides simple guidelines for healthy adults on what to eat and what not to eat to maintain best health.
Eating for Healthy Vegetarians
A guide to becoming a vegetarian without compromising your health. Lots of important information on responsible food choices and catering for the vegetarian child.
Healthy Weight for Adults
Includes tips on maintaining a healthy weight, making good food choices and incorporating exercise into your daily routine.
Eating for Healthy Pregnant Women
Nutritional needs are higher when you are pregnant. This brochure explains how you can meet those needs and protect the long-term health of both you and your baby.
Eating for Healthy Babies and Toddlers
This booklet for parents and caregivers describes how to go about feeding your baby and toddler successfully, safely and healthily. It answers some common questions about feeding in the first 18 months and outlines some meal plans.
Eating for Healthy Children aged 2 to 12
Explains how to help your child make nutritious food choices and be physically active every day. The guide outlines which foods are best for healthy development and gives snack suggestions.
Eating for Healthy Teenagers
Aimed at teens, this guide lists the four main food groups from which food choices should be made. It outlines the range of food within each group and gives an idea of serving size. It offers suggestions for healthful snacks and ideas on lower-fat takeaways.
Eating Well for Healthy Older People
Describes how to get maximum enjoyment and health from a nutritious diet and regular exercise. It also gives advice on how to gain or lose weight safely. The guide has a section on food safety and answers some frequently-asked questions about an older person's diet.
Better Vending for Health Guidelines
Guidelines for employers and vending machine companies on how to improve the nutritional quality and range of snack foods available in vending machines.
Function Catering Guidelines
A Heart Foundation guide to serving up healthy food at conferences, seminars and work functions.
Back to topBreastfeeding guidelines
A Guide for Employers: Breastfeeding in the Workplace
This is guide for employers outlines the advantages of providing facilities and opportunities for mothers to breastfeed or express milk while at work. It lists ideas on how to adapt a workplace to be "breastfeeding-friendly" and answers some frequently-asked questions.
Information for Employers - Women's Health Action Trust
Useful information for employers to encourage breastfeeding amongst working women.
Eating for Healthy Breastfeeding Women
A guide for breastfeeding mothers about eating the right foods to maintain best health while breastfeeding and the importance of looking after your own health as well as the health of your baby.
Back to topPhysical activity guidelines
Movement=Health brochure
This resource, for health professionals, details the proven benefits of exercise and the range of chronic health conditions it can prevent. It also looks at the consequences of society's drastic reduction in physical activity and what people can do to get active again.
Push Play for Kids
Kids should be physically active for 60 minutes a day compared with the adult guideline of 30 minutes. This pamphlet outlines the physical activity guidelines for children aged 5 to 18 years.
Back to topResources for employees
Have you pushed play today? Pamphlets
Incorporate physical activity into your everyday life - just 30 minutes a day can make a real difference. Sufficient daily exercise can come from just choosing a slightly different way of doing something, like taking the stairs instead of the lift. Available in Māori and Pacific languages.
Push Play posters
A range of posters covering the many forms of physical activity – organised sport as well as physical activity - we can weave into our daily lives, with the emphasis on having fun!
Push Play stair stickers
"Add life to your years: take the stairs": a set of 12 stickers to encourage people to abandon the lifts.
Push Play pamphlets
Simple descriptions of how everyone, including pregnant women and people with medical conditions, can include physical activity in their everyday lives and maintain a healthy weight. Includes a series of pamphlets in Māori and Pacific languages.
Be Active Every Day pamphlet
A three-step guide to feeling good by taking opportunities to include physical activity in our everyday lives, by planning some formal exercise and by choosing some active ways to unwind.
Food for Health pamphlet
This series gives advice on making nutritious food choices. It is available in a number of languages - English, Te reo Māori, Samoan, Fijian, Cook Islands Māori and Tokelauan.
Food for Health poster
This colourful A2-sized poster depicts foods from all the nutritious food groups and complements the Food for Health pamphlet.
Everyday Eating for Health pamphlet
A simply written, easy to understand, colourful guide for adults who want to get active every day and make nutritious food choices.
Servings per Day poster
Using every day food, this A2-sized poster illustrates what quantities are recommended per day from each of the four main food groups. Captions further explain the number of servings from each food group and examples of serving sizes.
Back to topCase studies
NZ Food Safety Authority: When losing's winning
Janice Attrill, who works for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA), has twice been declared the organisation's biggest loser but, far from being insulted, she's absolutely thrilled. Janice has lost eight kilos since joining an in-house weight loss programme, one NZFSA's initiatives to improve the health of its staff. Employees have also been pounding the pavements, huffing up hills and putting in lengths at the pool as part of an eight-week team challenge called Invigor8. Thirty-eight teams took up the challenge. That's about 300 employees, or over half of NZFSA's total staff.
SPARC: Igniting the SPARC
SPARC may be the government agency charged with getting people up and active but turning that message inward and motivating its own staff is a new challenge. The organisation is working with the Ministry of Health on the Government Walking the Talk initiative. It's aimed at encouraging state sector employers to help staff become more physically active and eat healthy food. Organisational Development Manager, Donna Ransom, believes 'SPARCies' are already a pretty fit lot but she's still feeling the pressure. "We're supposed to be the gurus when it comes to fitness so naturally all eyes are on us to see how well we do."
Ministry of Transport: Chocolate fish rewards for a healthy workstyle
Free health and fitness assessments, subsidised on-site yoga classes, flexible work hours, counselling services and chocolate fish tributes are all part of the Ministry of Transport's workplace wellness programme. Since 2004/5, the Ministry has introduced initiatives throughout its organisation to encourage and celebrate its staff adopting an active and healthy "workstyle".
Department of Internal Affairs: A healthy Affair
Using the resources of the NZ Well@Work initiative, the DIA is making employee health and wellbeing a priority.
Building on the success of Wellbeing Week and in the spirit of a wider government initiative to promote healthy work places, the DIA is now looking at implementing a more comprehensive wellness policy.
The aim is to bring existing employee health and welfare programmes under one umbrella and add more fitness and healthy nutrition initiatives.
Customs: Workplace Wellness Custom-made
If you work for the New Zealand Customs Service, you really don't have an excuse for not going to the gym. The service now has three workplace gyms, two in Auckland and one in Wellington.
The new facilities, equipped with exercycles, treadmills, rowers, multi-gyms and free weights, are part of a comprehensive plan by the Custom's Service to improve staff health.
The service has always required its frontline staff to be pretty fit - if you watch Border Control you'll understand why - but now it's focussing on the health of all its employees, including those who drive desks.
But even with all these initiatives, getting widespread uptake has been proving a challenge.
Ministry of Justice: Good Justice for Workers
Consolidating three national office sites into one provided the Ministry of Justice with an opportunity to create a workspace that encouraged new work practices, enabled transformation of the organisational culture, minimised impact on the environment and supported the wellness of its workforce.
This case study looks at the Ministry’s new work environment and their experience of attending to wellness during the process of change.
NZ Post: Wholesome Deliveries
When staff were surveyed at New Zealand’s largest mail centre, they requested more wholesome food at vending machines and cooking lessons so they could prepare healthier food at home.
The Highbrook Mail Centre in Auckland centre has 650 employees with a diverse ethnic makeup, predominantly Māori and Pacific people, with an increasing number of Asian staff. Many are shift workers.
The survey covered a number of factors relating to the wellbeing of the Highbrook employees and supplied some interesting results.
Southland District Health Board: Stodgy Shunned in Southland
It was out with the pies, chips and stodgy food (well most of it), and in with salads, sushi, fruit and low-fat options, when Southland District Health Board employees said they wanted healthier food in their cafeteria.
Revamping the café menu was just one of the changes the DHB made as part of its mission to promote good health.
Back to topMāori and Pacific resources
Whānau Ora tool
The Whānau Ora tool is a guide to developing and putting into practice culturally sound policies that embrace the Māori perspective. It provides a variety of questions that can be used for programme planning and strategy development.
Oranga Kai: Healthy Eating for Adult Māori
A guide developed for Māori adults on healthy food choices and ways to incorporate physical activity into daily life.
Food for Health pamphlet
This series gives advice on making nutritious food choices. It is available in a number of languages - English, Te reo Māori, Samoan, Fijian, Cook Islands Māori and Tokelauan.
Have you pushed play today? pamphlets
Incorporate physical activity into your everyday life - just 30 minutes a day can make a real difference. Sufficient daily exercise can come from just choosing a slightly different way of doing something, like taking the stairs instead of the lift. Available in Māori and Pacific languages.
Back to topRecruitment Resources
Wellness Manager job description example
Back to topWellness research
NZ Well@Work literature review, 2009
Back to topUseful links
SPARC
Push Play
Green Prescription
Ministry of Health
ActiveSmart
ACC Sport Smart tips
Department of Labour
Cancer Society – LiveSmart
Health Sponsorship Council
Smokefree Resources
Land Transport NZ – Bikewise
Land Transport NZ - Travel planning to and from work
Mental Health Foundation – Working Well resource
Mental Health Foundation – Useful resources
Mindnet - Useful resources
HabitAtWork
Skylight
NZ Screening – Ministry of Health
Breastscreen Aotearoa
Cervical Screening Programme
Alcohol Advisory Council of NZ (ALAC)
Heartbeat Challenge - Auckland Regional Public Health
Living Streets Aoteroa
Heart Foundation
Womens Health Action Trust
Diabetes New Zealand
Wellington City Council – Recreation Support
