Eat Well and Be Active Educational Toolkit

Executive Summary of User-Survey Results

Introduction

This report provides an overview of a survey conducted by Health Canada to determine stakeholder satisfaction of the Eat Well and Be Active Educational Toolkit.  Satisfaction was assessed by evaluating:

• usefulness of the Toolkit in teaching healthy eating and physical activity;
• usefulness for target groups;
• usefulness of each Toolkit component (poster, activity plans, images); and
• overall level of user satisfaction.

Feedback received from this survey will be used to determine whether the goals and objectives of the Toolkit are achieved, facilitate improvements and develop recommendations for future initiatives.

Background

The Eat Well and Be Active Educational Toolkit is a supplementary tool designed to help intermediaries teach healthy eating and physical activity in an integrated manner through promoting the use of Canada's Food Guide and Tips to Get Active to Canadians.

The Toolkit includes:

• Eat Well and Be Active Every Day Poster: An educational poster to promote eating well and being physically active to both children and adults. The poster features 24 healthy eating and physical activity images.
• Activity Plans: The activity plans are designed to help use the poster as an educational tool. Each activity plan has a set of learning objectives and specific activities (for children and adults) to achieve those learning objectives.
• Eat Well and Be Active Images: 54 healthy eating and physical activity images that complement the poster.

Methodology

A total of 364 stakeholders from across Canada completed an online user survey between August 15 and September 30, 2011, approximately one year after the launch of the Toolkit.  The most common expertise among respondents was in teaching healthy eating and physical activity concepts to children and in developing educational/health promotion materials.  The majority of respondents chose to answer the survey in English.  As it was not a random sample, there is no response rate or margin of error calculated for the results.  As such, key findings should be treated as directional rather than representative of all Toolkit users.

Key Findings

• About half of all respondents said they had used the Toolkit since it had become available.  Those who had not used it generally were not aware of its existence.
• Satisfaction with the Toolkit itself was overwhelmingly positive due to its ease of use, good information, and visual attractiveness.
• The poster was by far the most popular component of the Toolkit, with almost 8 in 10 respondents recalling having used it.  About half of all respondents utilized either the activity plans or the images in their work. Three-quarters of respondents believed that the Toolkit is appropriate for the work they do, most frequently because the information provided was considered pertinent and useful.  Of those who felt it was inappropriate for their work, most cited that it didn't fit with their professional discipline or the function of their organization.
• Eighty percent of respondents felt that the Toolkit was useful in teaching healthy eating and physical activity in an integrated manner.
• A large majority of respondents indicated that they would be willing to recommend the Toolkit to colleagues. 
• There is fairly broad support for the inclusion of new topics for future activity plans.  The most popular topics included nutrition labelling, shopping, and creative ideas for physical activity and preparing/cooking food. 

Recommendations

Canada's Food Guide and the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines require continued supportive resources to facilitate their use and understanding by Canadians.  The Eat Well and Be Active Educational Toolkit serves to provide intermediaries with a resource that can effectively facilitate the teaching of integrated healthy eating and physical activity messages to Canadians, while promoting Canada's Food Guide and Tips to Get Active.

Results of the user survey indicate that the Toolkit is widely supported and needed by intermediaries.  Ongoing development of this initiative will help ensure continued relevance and usefulness to stakeholders.  This will include enhancements to current activity plans, development of additional activity plans, updates to the Toolkit's webpage (www.health.gc.ca/eatwell-beactive), additional web features and continued monitoring of userfeedback. In addition, a variety of promotion and marketing strategies will be used in an effort to improve awareness and use among stakeholders.