New lifestyle and cooking programme significantly helps participants’ health and wellbeing, research shows.
All participants in a pilot of Pegasus Health’s new lifestyle and cooking programme in the Pacific community lost body fat – with the majority also improving on key health and wellbeing measures such as lower cholesterol and more social connection.
Puāwai-Kai is a new Pegasus Health programme Cantabrians can access through their general practitioner or via the website. The free 8-week course includes learnings on looking after your health with food, managing stress, improving sleep and learning how to cook affordable, healthy food with seasonal vegetables and fruit.
Pegasus Health CEO Mark Liddle says Puāwai-Kai helps Cantabrians learn how small changes in the way they live can add up to big changes in their health and wellbeing.
To ensure the programme delivers benefits to as many Cantabrians as possible, the Pūawai-Kai Healthy Lifestyle team piloted with a wide range of groups, including men, refugee communities, older people and Māori and Pasifika groups.
The impact of the pilot programme on participants in Pasifika groups was studied by University of Otago, Christchurch researcher Dr Allamanda Faatoese as part of her ongoing research addressing heart disease risk among Canterbury’s Pacific communities.
Dr Faatoese says she studied three groups of Pacific people who did the Puāwai-Kai course in the latter half of 2021, with one of the groups doing it during a national lock-down.
The research project recorded changes in blood pressure, cholesterol profile, blood sugar, weight and body fat. She says early analysis of the three groups of Pasifika families found all participants dropped body fat and triglyceride levels. Triglycerides are a type of fat in the blood and high levels increase the risk of conditions such as heart attack and stroke.
Dr Faatoese says study results shows Puāwai-Kai’s potential.
“The results are a good indicator of the quality of the Puāwai-Kai programme and its potential to improve Cantabrians’ health and wellbeing. Hopefully changes that happen during the course will translate to better outcomes in terms of long term conditions, such as diabetes.”
“Pasifika families who take part in the research express a great desire to live long and healthy lives, yet the high cost of healthy eating and leading very busy lives are some factors that make it very hard to achieve. The initial results of decreased body fat and triglycerides in the pilot study are a result of our participants making small, achievable changes such as knowing what foods are healthy and affordable for their family, moving more in the day, getting good sleep and having strategies to manage stress – all key components in the Puāwai-Kai course. But the wider benefits included greater social connectivity, which became evident when one of our groups happened during a national lockdown. We took our course online because our group wanted to remain connected and continue learning together.”
How does Puāwai-Kai work?
The Puāwai-Kai programme was developed with feedback from primary care professionals and participants involved in nine pilot courses. It runs for eight sessions, two hours per week. It is delivered in small groups of up to 16 participants by trained facilitators. The first three weeks focus on lifestyle changes, with kai to support each session. This is followed by five weeks of cooking – putting the ideas into action. All eight sessions end with sharing kai together.
For more information email communication@pegasus.org.nz
