When The Include Choir meets virtually or in person we often talk about food!
Last week we voted on whether we thought it was good to have pineapple on pizza – or not.
Quite a controversial topic!
Good nutrition matters
When we can meet up in-person we have snacks available, ranging from the very healthy like carrots and seaweed to treats like biscuits, and we’ll admit it…sometimes we have cake!
We take care to offer a range of food options. While food can be fun, we know that being healthy can be a challenge for people. We also know that sometimes it can become a serious issue for people with learning disabilities or autism.
“Good nutrition is vital to the health and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities, but they are more likely than the general population to be underweight or overweight/obese, in most cases due to lifestyle factors and not to causes inherent to their learning disabilities.”
LeDeR Programme Fact Sheet 28, 2019
Free Resource about being Healthy
During Healthy Eating Week this June we know quite a few of our members have been paying special attention to what they eat. Well done everyone.
Our Choir Rep Hannah has worked alongside our volunteer Sofia to produce a free Easy Read resource about being healthy. We hope this will be useful to other people too.
We are producing one free Easy Read resource each month for a year as we explained in our blog last month.
A bit about our role model
Hannah is a very active member of The Include Choir.
She works hard to get the balance right between having fun and enjoying food and being healthy.
During lockdown she has been exercising at home and sometimes shows us what she has been baking.
Hannah keeps track of all her activities on a weekly planner.
One way she keeps fit while having fun is doing Bolly X, a fitness class inspired by Bollywood dance.
Hannah works in a supermarket where she can get free recipe cards and she also subscribed to Easy Cook magazine. One of her favourite recent bakes was Cinnamon Bun Muffins – don’t they sound delicious?! Her favourite healthy snack is melon.
Hannah says; “It’s ok to have some unhealthy stuff but not every day. It’s a good idea to look at the back, at the ingredients, to see how much sugar is in it.”
Hannah knows that what she drinks is important too. She likes cranberry juice (cranberry light) and also drinks about 6 cups of water a day.
We hope our free Easy Read resource inspires you to try one of Hannah’s ideas…
Communications, Fundraising and Partnerships Lead