1. Advocacy In Child Care
Children’s Health & Well-Being
Group Members:
Rubina, Angela, Madonna, Tayiba, Jing, Niro
Healthy Lifestyle

2. Advocacy Statement
We truly believe that children’s health and well-being in the
early year of a child has a profound impact on his or her future
development. Children’s health and well-being is an issue for our
group because we are going to be Early Childhood Educators and
we are there the first few years of a child’s life. The way the
children eat and exercise are important to a child’s future health and
development. Early Childhood Educator also plays a significant role
to prevent a child’s health issues, provide support and promote
healthy growth among young children in child care centers. We
need to bring awareness of children’s health and well-being to
parents, children and community in order to prevent the future
health risks.

3. Stakeholders
 YMCA
Website: http://www.ymcagta.org/en/who-we-are/our-vision/index.html
 Boys and Girls Clubs of Toronto Network
Website: http://www.boysandgirlsclubsoftoronto.com/
 Sick Kids
Website: http://www.sickkids.ca/search/search.aspx
 Health Canadians
Website: http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/index-eng.php
 City of Toronto Healthy Babies Healthy Children
Website: http://www.toronto.ca/health/healthybabieshealthychildren/index.htm/
 Good Life Kids Foundation
Website: http://www.toronto.ca/health/healthybabieshealthychildren/index.htm/
 Family service Toronto Growing up Healthy Downtown
Website: http://www.familyservicetoronto.org/programs/guhd.html

4. Three Types of Research
 Conduct Surveys
 Internet Research
 Conduct Interviews

5. Survey Questions Statistics
2.00% 2.00% 5 or more
100% 8.00%
5-7 times/w 8.00% 3-4
Don’t Know
times/w
90% 30.00% 10.00%
5 or more 3-4
h/w time/w
80%
70%
70.00%
1-4 66.00%
60% times/w Series4
1-2
times/w 58.00% Series3
50% 50.00% 1-2
3-4 h/w Series2
times/w
40% Series1
30%
20%
28.00%
20.00% 24.00%
Never
10% 1-2 h/w Never 14.00%
Never
0%
TV Soft Drink Fast Food Physical Exercise

6. Research Summary
Parent Lifestyles
 Stress levels
 Smoking/drug addiction
 Social Activity
 Culture
 Relatioships
 Social Activity
 Parenting style
 Work
Screen Time-TV
A number of research point out the negative effect of TV programs
 Diet
 Overweight
 Health issues
A number of research point out the positive effect of TV programs
 Brain development
 Healthy habits

7. Research Summary (cont.)
Video games
 Advantages of video games
 Disadvantages of video games
Advertising
 Child- targeted ads are unhealthy
 37% children’s advertisements are food advertisements and 98% of them are unhealthy
 Concerns regarding ads

8. Research Summary (cont.)
ECE roles and responsibilities
 Children spend most time with educators
 Lesson plans
 Role model
 ECEs need to be knowledgeable about content on community programs
Fast Foods
 Poor nutrition
 Overweight
 Serious Health diseases
 Addictive food to children
 Brain development
 Shorten life spans

9. Interview with Nutritionist
Questions & answers
Date: Mar 18, 2013
Time: 9:35pm
Interviewer: Angela Ma
Interviewee: Jessica Chen - Nutritionist
icyflower48@hotmail.com
Males Females
 How parents support children eat healthy?
From my thoughts, these are general Age Energy EER Age Energy EER
things I think would help parents to (years) (kcal/day) (years) (kcal/day)
support their children in healthy eating.
Be role models in healthy eating, be
involved together as a family in meals, 0-0.5 570 0-0.5 520
eat together, Involve them in cooking
healthy foods, Shop for healthy snacks, 0.5-1 743 0.5-1 676
have treats in moderation, be active with 1-3 1046 1-3 992
the children, develop healthy habits early
on, and educate your children on healthy 4-8 1742 4-8 1642
eating
9-13 2279 9-13 2071
 What is your recommendation for daily
intake of calories, fat, sodium, carbon 14-18 3152 14-18 2368
hydrate, etc. for a child at different age 1-3,
4-6, 7-9, 10-12?

10. Interview with Manager-Tim Hortons
Questions & answers
Interviewer: Niro A.
Interviewee: (Name). The Manager of Tim Hortons
Location: 720 Warden Ave., E
Date: March 16, 2013
 How much or how many Timbits sold out a day?
Approximately 300 Timbits sold out a day.
 Any nutrition fact people can check for nutrition about product -Horton's Tim donut or
timbits?
People can check nutrition about product, because Tim Horton’s have nutrition guide.but
they never ask nutrition guide to buy donut or Timbits.
 Which one is the healthiest product for children at Tim Horton’s?
Milk, apple juice and orange juice.
 Have people challenged Tim Horton’s' products for healthy or not? e.g.: ask for
nutrition facts?
Some people ask nutrition guide to check the foods. But they didn’t ask nutrition guide to
check children foods.
 What kind of products children like in Tim Horton’s?
Timbits, donut, hot chocolate, French vanilla, cookies.

11. Family Channel

12. Action Plan
Facebook YMCA Event Brochure McDonald’s Family Channel

13. Action Plan-1
Facebook

14. Action Plan- 2
YMCA Event-Greensborough YMCA,
March 8, 2013
 Children learn what is healthy and non healthy mostly from their peers or educators. Some
children spend most of their day in childcares and schools. We believe that the learning about what is
healthy and what activities can promote good physical health, should be taught by ECEs or teachers. This
way, the children bring what they have learned to their household and they can give their knowledge about
healthy lifestyles to their parents and caregivers.
 YMCA provides before and after school care for Kindergartens and school agers. Since we believe
that children should learn about healthy living lifestyles from teachers and Early Childhood Educators, we
decided to do one of our actions in a YMCA childcare centre. We brought in some materials that can
provide the children with physical activities. Some activities we did include Soccer, Octopus and hula
hoops. These activities we implemented had the children using their gross motor skills. We also decided
to teach the children about healthy eating. We had the children categorize which food they thought were
healthy and had them categorize the items into food groups. It was surprising to see that some children
thought cake and other food were healthy.
YMCA Event

15. Pictures of the “YMCA EVENT”
Physical-Indoor Activity Physical-outdoor Activity
Donation
Nutrition Activity Nutrition Activity

16. Action Plan- 3
Brochure for Community

17. Action Plan-4
Advocacy Letter to McDonald’s
47, 2830 Midland Avenue
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
M1S 1S4
McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited
1 McDonald's Place
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M3C 3L4
March 25, 2013
To Whom It May Concern:
Re: Customer Relation
On behalf of my advocacy group, I am writing this letter to you with regards of children’s health and well-being.
As
Early Childhood Educators, we truly believe that nutrition in the early year of a child has a profound impact on
their future development.
In fact, McDonald’s is a well-known fast food restaurant that influences millions of children every day. In these
years, we have realized that the choice of Happy Meals has been improved with a goal of promoting health and
nutrition. However, when considering food and nutrition guidelines from Ministry of Health in Canada, the food
choices are still unhealthy for children because the food items are filled with preservatives and other chemicals
that prevent decomposition. In addition, nutrition facts should be clearly labeled on all food packages that help
customers to understand their daily intake. Frankly, any food experiences in children’s daily life should not be
underestimated. We believe that all children have the right of having adequate nutrition for their health and
parents have the right to see their child growing healthy.
Hence, we strongly recommend that McDonald’s playing a significant role in fast food industry should be taking
children’s health and well being as a very first concern. Please take further action to continuously improve the
nutrition values in the food choices and take your social responsibility to support a healthy community.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,

18. Action Plan-5
Advocacy Letter to Family Channel
19, White Heather Blvd,
Scarborough, Ontario
M1V 2P8
Family Channel
Brookfield Place
181 Bay Street, PO Box 787
Toronto, Ontario
M5J 2T3
March 31, 2013
To whom it may concern:
On behalf of my advocacy group, I am writing this letter to you with regards of children’s health and well- being. As
early childhood educators ,we truly believe that nutrition and physical activity in the early year of a child has a
profound impact on their future development.
In fact, Family.ca is a well known TV channel that influences million of children every day. As we know, most
young children spend their time watching TV more than 2 hours per day. In these years, we have realized that the
children shows of Family.ca have been improved with a goal of promoting social relationship. However, when
considering physical health to children, the children shows are still not good enough to promote healthy lifestyles
such as how to select healthy food and physical exercises. A number of researches indicate that children
overexposed to TV have already influenced their physical activity level and daily diets that become one of major
effect on children’s health issue. We believed that all children have the right of having adequate physical activities
for their health and parents have the right to see their child growing healthy.
Hence, we strongly recommended that Family.ca should be taking children health and well being as a very first
concern when playing a significant role in broadcast industry. We, as Early Childhood Educators, would like to see
the hours of children shows can be minimized during after school hours and sincerely request that Family.ca
should consider children’s healthy living as your further production plan. Please take your social responsibility to
support a healthy community.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Niroja Anandarajah

19. Follow-Up Plan
 Donation for strong kids walk every year
 Go for walk Date: May 2 2013 Location: Any YMCA
centres every year
 Keep update information on face book
 Follow up their response and keep update information
from McDonald’s
 Follow up their response and keep update information
from Family Channel

20. Thank You