LET’S TALK HEALTH

Kids learning how to be the healthiest version of themselves is just as important as being able to read and write. Pharmacist and public health academic Dr Rosie Nash says there is an urgent need in Tasmania for young people to become more health literate.

What she means is that children need to be taught how to make healthy choices every day, and the community they live in needs to encourage and support them.

When it dawned on her two years ago that other Tasmanian children didn’t have the same access to conversations about health that her own kids did, the Kingston Beach mother-of-two did something about it. With the help of her friend Shandell Elmer, HealthLit4Kids was created.

Now places like Nepal, Luxembourg and Germany are keen to adopt the program so children in their communities can thrive.

The World Health Organisation awardwinning program is in five Tasmanian primary schools, but her dream is that all schools here could benefit.

“Tasmanians have the worst health outcomes nationally,” Dr Nash told TasWeekend.

“And I know this program can help to overcome those problems.”

But dwindling funding for the program may mean it takes off in another country before Tasmania.

“Tasmania is very good at saying ‘we’ve always done it this way’,” Dr Nash says.

“We’ve come up with a radical program and it has been because this is a massive social injustice issue.

“We can’t just keep standing by and watching young people not reaching their full potential. We need to pay more attention to it.”

For more information head to https://www.utas.edu.au/hl4k