July 2011 - Constituent Society and Partnership Corner

OSNPPH 2010-2011 Highlights

The Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health (OSNPPH) has completed another successful year. Membership remains high and approximately 50% of our members are actively involved with our work groups, committees and other activities of OSNPPH.

Here are a few of our key activities:

  1. OSNPPH Advocacy Committee and the OPHA Food Security Workgroup collaborated in the development of the Call to Action on Food Security Advocacy Toolkit which members are encouraged to use in their local advocacy efforts especially during this election year.
  1. The Family Health Nutrition Workgroup developed the Family Health Advisory Group Allergy Discussion Paper which was a synthesis of current allergy prevention in infants and young children.  The purpose was to create a document to allow registered dietitians working in public health to have a consistent message for parents. The paper has been distributed to our membership, Health Canada, alPHa, Best Start Resource Centre and Dietitians of Canada.

Summary of the key messages:

  1. There is no evidence that restricting the mother's diet by avoiding highly allergenic foods, such as peanuts, during pregnancy, plays a role in preventing food allergies in their children, regardless of family history.
  2. There is no consensus or convincing evidence that restricting the mother’s diet during lactation prevents allergies in children, regardless of the risk of developing food allergy.
  3. For all healthy, full-term infants, there is no clear evidence to support that delaying the introduction of “high-risk” food will prevent allergies.
  4. From an allergy prevention perspective, evidence suggests introducing solid foods after the age of four months may prevent the occurrence of allergies.
  5. For all healthy, full-term infants there is no clear evidence that delaying solid foods past the age of six months prevents allergies and it may increase the risk of nutritional deficiencies (especially iron) and inadequate energy intake.

The full report can be downloaded from www.osnpph.on.ca/resources/index.php. OSNPPH would like to recognize Becky Blair, Rebecca Davids, Ellen Lakusiak and Dianne Oickle for their hard work creating this document.

The Family Health Nutrition Advisory Group also updated the 2004 document Pediatric Nutrition Guidelines for Health Care Professionals. This document outlines the developmental milestones and red flags for infants and children. This now aligns with the new WHO Growth Charts and new infant feeding messages and can be downloaded at www.osnpph.on.ca/resources/index.php look for Improving the Odds.

  1. The OSNPPH School Nutrition Workgroup was active this year updating the Nutrition Tools for Schools toolkit to align with the Ministry of Education’s P/PM 150 School Food and Beverage Policy which comes into effect September 2011. The School Nutrition Workgroup also developed the Healthy School Nutrition Environment Campaign to promote the whole school approach and collaborated to adapt the Nutrition Tools for Schools for the secondary school setting.
  1. The Workplace Nutrition Advisory Group is a newly formed group. This year the group participated in strategic planning and has begun writing a Call to Action document outlining the literature and the best practices in workplace health. The goal is to create a resource similar to the Nutrition Tools for Schools.

Each year OSNPPH recognizes a member for the contribution to public health. This year Heather Thomas received the Peer Recognition Award. Heather has been with the Middlesex London Health Unit since 1995 and has a long history of very active involvement with OSNPPH. Heather is always willing to collaborate with colleagues in other health units, sharing resources and knowledge, as well as her time. Heather is currently a PhD candidate in Health and Rehabilitation Science at the University of Western Ontario. Congratulations Heather!

The theme for the 2011 Nutrition Exchange, our annual conference, was “From Policy to Practice”. Key presenters included David Hammond who shared lessons learned from the impact of tobacco labelling and packaging on public health behaviors and how they can be applied to nutrition; and Paul Veugelers who spoke to the group on the costs and benefits of using a comprehensive school health model.