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Healthy Communities survey local students

Questions surround screen time, diet and exercise rules

"How many times do you eat dinner at the table together with your family?"

That's just one of the questions students will be answering in an upcoming survey designed to find out about current local lifestyles.

The survey based on the 5-2-1-0 Let's Go concept of better living, and was developed by Hope and area Healthy Communities. The school board approved the survey unanimously at Tuesday's board meeting. Stan Watchorn, the district's director of instruction, explained that the survey will ask basic questions about students' lives and give health providers and the school district an idea of what health barriers students are facing.

The 5-2-1-0 Let's Go program asks kids to eat five or more fruits and vegetables a day, limit themselves to two hours or less of recreational screen time, encourages one hour or more per day or physical activity and zero sugary drinks in favour of water and low fat milk.

University study

The board also approved a second survey to be carried out this year, with two trustees opposed.

Both Trustee Pat Furness and Trustee Linda McMullan both voted against bringing the Queen's University Health Study to the Fraser Cascade.

"It's just survey after survey," Furness said.

The survey looks at the health status of young people across Canada, and will be given to students in Grades 7 to 10 at AESS and Grades 6 and 7 at C.E. Barry intermediate school.

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