Water will get the green light over all other sugary drinks at Kyneton aquatic centre starting this week.
Cobaw Community Health and Macedon Ranges Health are behind the three month trial of the state government’s Healthy Choices Guidelines – where food and drink is graded using a traffic light system according to their nutritional value.
The Kyneton Toyota Sports and Aquatic Centre will be the first in the Macedon
Ranges municipality to run the trials which focus on promoting water as the drink of choice.
The Healthy Choices Guidelines were created to encourage healthy food and drinks to be offered and promoted at sport, recreation and aquatic centres, health services, hospitals, parks and workplaces.
The latest state population health survey showed that about a third of residents in the Macedon Ranges consume sugar sweetened soft drinks either daily, once or several times per week and and only about five per cent of residents do not consume any water in a day.
Cobaw Community Health chief executive Margaret McDonald said she hoped that the program would encourage the community to make more positive food choices.
“Most parents would be shocked to discover that a can of cola flavoured drink contains 10 teaspoons of sugar,” Ms McDonald said.
