Healthy UoN Update

Central Coast Staff and Student Health Fair

Over 150 staff and students attended the Central Coast Campus Health Fair Tuesday 17th September. The focus of the fair was to highlight the importance of physical, psychological and social wellbeing. The Health Fair showcased our oral health and podiatry student talent with advice on correct teeth brushing techniques and free feet checks.

The fair was opened by Linda Cooper, Associate Director Tertiary and Regional Partnerships, and Vincent Candrawinata, Food Science PhD student.

Stall holders included ergonomics, healthy cooking on a budget, counselling services, Medicare local, Cancer Council NSW, health promotion, cholesterol checks, blood pressure checks, manual handling and nutrition.
Students and staff were treated to free massages, music, showbags and samples of healthy food. Demonstrations were held throughout the day including a Zumba demonstration, how to exercise anywhere and GRIT high intensity training. 

Global Corporate Challenge

In May this year, 525 University of Newcastle employees joined a 185,000-strong community of workers worldwide at the start line of leading corporate health initiative: the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC). Yesterday we completed the challenge happier, healthier and – virtually – well travelled for it.

Over the last 16 weeks, participants were encouraged to get out of their seats as much as possible throughout the work day, to engage with their office colleagues face-to-face instead of over email or telephone, to take the stairs wherever they could and to leave their desks and walk during lunch breaks.

The University of Newcastle participants walked a total step count of 631,703,781 steps and burnt off a daily calorie average of 503 calories. This equates to 53,324 burgers, 71, 099 blocks of chocolate and 152,764 glasses of wine.

Early statistics show that Professor Andrew Parfitt took out top honours across the executive team members being in the top 200 most improved University of Newcastle participants.

Security Services team took out first place and 218th ranking on the GCC global leaderboard – no mean feat considering the total 1,872 teams in the running.