KFL&A Board of Health learns of local initiative to increase Food Guide-friendly options at recreation centres

The lure of canteen poutine is hard to resist when your stomach starts to rumble at the arena, but we all know it’s not the healthiest choice we could make. Moreover, the nutritional value of arena food, in general, leaves much to be desired.

Recently, though, as the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington (KFLA) Board of Health learned at their Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, meeting, changes at some Kingston area recreation centres have provided not only a positive nutritional impact appreciated by patrons, but also data for national food health research. Angela MacMillan, a Public Health dietitian on the KFLA Public Health Healthy Communities Team told the board about the 'Food Guide-Friendly Initiative,' which KFL&A Public Health has been working on with Health Canada, over the past two years. 

MacMillan began by presenting a background of KFL&A Public Health’s history working in recreation settings, such as arenas and other sports settings. 

“From 2011 to 2013, we participated in the Eat Smart initiative, which awarded local recreation sites that met specific healthy eating criteria. However, when that was discontinued, we looked for other ways to support our local recreation sites," she said.

In 2015, KFL&A Public Health ran a series of surveys across six different sites, and 400 people participated. MacMillan shared that over half of the survey respondents said they spend “at least three nights a week at the arena," and three-quarters of survey participants “regularly buy food there for themselves and their families.” 

“Fifty-nine per cent of participants said that their main reason for not purchasing foods is that there's no healthier options available, and over half of them said that they would purchase food more often if there were healthier options on the menu,” she explained.  

KFL&A Public Health reran the survey in 2018 with similar patron responses. They then did some recreation facility assessments, finding that “vending and canteen options at most of our sites were not meeting healthy eating criteria.” 

“The pandemic disrupted many of these operations in our local sites, so as they've gotten back to their regular capacity, we've been looking for ways to re-engage them", MacMillan noted. Recently, she said, “We’ve offered some support with developing [Request for Proposals] from their contracting food vendors, and that has led us to our next initiative.” 

In 2019, Health Canada released the newest edition of Canada's Food Guide and a series of resources to support individual organizations with their food environments. And “as a result of all of the work that KFL&A Public Health had done previously in these recreation settings, Health Canada reached out to us to participate in consulting on their Food Guide-friendly principles for recreation settings,” MacMillian said. 

The Public Health dietitians ran a series of focus groups with dietitians across Canada and reported back to Health Canada on the Food Guide-friendly principles.

“Then, Health Canada asked us to run a pilot project to test out their Food Guide-friendly principles,” the dietitian shared.

The Food Guide-Friendly Initiative

“This is a voluntary initiative for publicly funded institutions that encourages them to improve their eating environments by offering more nutritious foods, and making those nutritious foods more appealing through placement, promotion, and pricing strategies. [Health Canada] has created some tools to go along with food environment assessment and action planning tools. And this project was highlighted before in post-secondary settings," MacMillan continued in her presentation.

"So, for our purposes, the pilot project aimed to test out the Food Guide-friendly principles for recreation settings and the associated tools to determine their usefulness for recreation sites and improving their food environments."

Sites were then invited to use the tools at their canteens, and then they would report back on how useful the tools were, she explained.

“Our pilot project took place over the 2023 to 2024 winter sports season. We invited recreation sites across the area that have canteens to participate. We had three interested, and two participated with full follow through,” she said, noting the sites were being kept confidential for now “as they are part of a research project.”

Beginning last fall, Macmillan said, she conducted environment assessments at the site using Health Canada schools and, “we found that most sites were not offering any green vegetables, [and] very few whole grain and lean protein options.”

Next, they did a baseline survey of patrons.

“It found similar things to other services that we've done in the past. Over half of patrons spend multiple nights in the arena, and at least a third of them want healthier options for themselves and their families, such as fruits and vegetables, wraps, soups, etc. The main reason for not purchasing food was that people were either bringing it from home or that they didn't want to purchase it because there were no options available that were healthier," MacMillian elucidated.

“We went into action planning with all of this information, and I also used Health Canada tools to work with the sites to set goals based on what they were already doing… the changes they could make to improve their food environment," she explained, saying, "The sites are committed to offering fruits and vegetables more regularly, snacks with lower sugar content, and serving more whole grain products regularly.”

Between January and March of 2024, the sites worked to implement their goals, and they were invited to sign the “Food Guide-Friendly Pledge.” MacMillan explained that the pledge “indicated that they were making a commitment to offering some of these Food Guide-friendly foods regularly. In return, they received access to promotional tools from Health Canada, including posters and social media messages to share with their communities what they were working on and promote messages about nutrition and sports.”

MacMilllan noted that challenges with participation included the prices of certain foods and the limited space for stock at the canteens.

“Our evaluation took place from April to June 2024. This included a second food environment assessment to see what had changed, running another series of surveys to determine how patrons felt about the changes, and collecting sales data. Recreation managers and fencing operators were also invited to a series of interviews so that we can determine their challenges and successes,” she concluded.

Project results

This past summer, Health Canada was informed of the project results. MacMillan explained that there were some positive changes in the food environments.

“We saw improvements in fruits and vegetables being offered more regularly, [and] whole grain products, and snacks with lower salt, sugar, and fat content. We also saw some more minor improvements in lean and plant-based proteins,“ she shared.

“Our sales [data] definitely still show that things like poutine are the number one sellers at these sites. However, we also saw an improvement in Food Guide-friendly options. At one of our sites, there was an increase of 20.3 per cent of their Food Guide-friendly items while their overall sales remained consistent.”

The patron survey, which she called “overwhelmingly positive to arenas participating in its initiative,” found that over a third of patrons tried a new item during the implementation period, and almost all of those patrons said they would try that again. 

“Our implementation period was fairly short, two months long,” she told the board. “So, that did affect our results. However, we did see some positive indications that this trend would continue over a longer period.”

MacMillan noted that interviews with recreation staff and managers found "overwhelmingly that the recreation staff and managers are interested in participating in things like this."

"They want to show their communities that they are working to provide more nutritious options for their children and athletes,” she stated.

“We found that the participants thought that the Food Guide-friendly tools helped improve their nutrition knowledge and gave them lots of ideas on things to work on. However, they felt that financial consideration was lacking. We found that barriers included cost, food waste, and staff limitations such as capacity, staff time, and buying into this initiative. The sites appreciated having Public Health dietitians support them and keep them on track when they couldn't." 

"Another significant barrier that we found was consumer activity," MacMillan went on. "Many people just don't expect to see healthier options at arenas, so they're not necessarily seeking them out. Even though we are offering them, more needs to be done to raise awareness that they should expect to see them there and that they can go and buy them there."

Next steps

"Health Canada has approved our report, and they are streamlining the implementation process for the Food Guide-friendly tools. We're hoping it will be publicly available soon," MacMillan shared.

In the meantime, she said, "We will continue to support local sites and the strategies we learned during this project, as well as the Health Canada tools once they become available. Also, we'll continue to support initiatives that focus on building  consumer awareness."

Councillor Conny Glen called the report "important" and noted that the City Council recently passed a motion to make more effort to include Canada's Food Guide in its forward planning.

Glenn wondered about the project's biggest challenges, and MacMillan explained that one of the main concerns was the financial costs of offering fruits and vegetables.

"Fruits and vegetables are great to offer," she said, but they go bad quickly. So, we worked with the sites a lot on creative solutions, such as choosing less perishable things, like apples and oranges, to have available."

“It was a lot of coming up with menu plans that would work for them, rather than saying, 'Let's just offer fruits and vegetables,' across the board," she said.  She gave the example of planning for fresh fruit one week that can be incorporated into baking the following week. Offering fresh bananas for one week was a great idea, but if there were leftovers, those over-ripe bananas could be made into banana muffins, saving money and avoiding waste.

Board Chair Wess Garrod inquired whether vending machines were included in the study. McMillan explained they weren't, but only because the arenas involved didn't choose that focus. However, she noted that Health Canada has tools and resources for vending machine options at recreation centres.

Garrod thanked MacMillan for the informative presentation, noting that KFL&A Public Health's involvement with Health Canada and leadership were, in his opinion, "huge."

The KFL&A Public Health Board of Health meets once monthly, us