Wednesday, February 2022
We are super excited to welcome Megan to the Healthy Eats Team. Megan is filling the role of Community Development Officer – North Queensland while Kristina is on maternity leave.
Megan is a familiar face to many of our North Queensland schools, having been the ‘Talk About It’ Sexual Health Educator in the region since 2018. Megan is a passionate educator who loves to share her knowledge and experience with the amazing schools and students across North Queensland.
Learn more about Megan in our Q&A with her below.
I am currently backfilling the amazing Community Development Officer, Kristina, while her and baby Spencer spend some time together. I am the North Qld CDO which means I work with our brilliant Cairns, Townsville and Mackay region Healthy Eats schools.
I have worked with Life Ed Qld as a Talk About It Sexual Health Educator since 2018 and have helped the Healthy Eats team previously in 2020.
My day usually involves travelling to one of our Region’s great schools and meeting with staff and students.
It can include toolkit meetings with our school based Healthy Eats Champions (coordinators) or running a Healthy Eats session with students in their classrooms.
I love the people! This includes not only the Life Ed Qld Healthy Eats team, but also the passionate school staff that are facilitating this program in their schools; but my favourite people of all are the students.
I love seeing their lightbulb moments and their eagerness to continue learning about how they can improve their own knowledge around healthy eating, now and into the future.
I think it is so important that everyone has access to health and nutrition education because it can not only affect the current generation but also future generations, both positively and negatively. Understanding how to fuel your body efficiently is a skill that needs to be learned.
As all students’ backgrounds differ, so too does their understanding of nutrition. I consider nutrition information a necessity and not a privilege, which is why I am so passionate about teaching health programs to as many of our young people as possible.
The vegetable (though it’s not really a vegetable) I would take is avocado because I have recently learned how to grow these from the seed. The fruit I would take would be either an apple or an orange because they are such good all-round reliable fruits.
My mother always spoke about rainbow meals – meals that contain most if not all colours of a rainbow. She said that these would contain a good balance and I still strive to do this with my children.
Another good one was – when shopping, try to stick to foods that look as close to their natural form as possible. For example, fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, nuts etc. This is usually a pretty good indicator of healthy foods as it hasn’t been through many, if any, processes.
