Primary school student Nancy Zhang wins competition to encourage children to choose water to drink. 

Primary school student Nancy Zhang has been named the winner of a competition run by Sydney Local Health District to encourage children to choose water to drink, rather than sweetened drinks like juice, cordial, soft drinks, sport drinks and flavoured milk.

“Water is the best drink for everyone who is thirsty. Drinking plenty of water every day is essential for health and wellbeing,” Lisa Simone, the Director of the District’s Health Promotion Unit, said.

As part of a campaign run by the Unit, 1400 students in years five and six from 14 local primary schools designed logos to promote water as the best drink.

A winning entry from each school was selected and the logo printed on re-usable water bottles, with each student who participated in the competition to receive one.

Members of the Unit then had the difficult task of choosing the best overall entry, with the winner’s prize a water re-filing station for their school.

Nancy, who is in year six at St Mel’s Catholic Primary School at Campsie, was selected as the winner for her logo which features the slogan “Original version of fresh.”

“We were learning about the water cycle. I wanted everyone to know that pure, fresh water was already there for us. I wanted to bring that to attention,” Nancy said.

Her teacher Adela Vartuli said students enjoyed participating.

“It was very exciting. The students are quite artistic, especially those in Year Six. They always love drawing. Those who were interested in participating did and they loved it. Nancy has done a great job,” Adela said.

Lisa said it was difficult to select the winner.

“It was a hard choice for us to make but we selected Nancy’s water bottle logo design as the winner because of the quality of the design and the creativity and clarity of her message,” Lisa said.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend children up to eight-years-old need about four to five cups of fluids a day and that adolescents need about six to eight cups of fluid – and that water is best.

“It’s especially important for children to drink water. It is the best choice because it has no added sugar. It’s best to limit children’s intake of sugar-sweetened drinks which can lead to tooth decay and weight gain,” Lisa said.

“The competition got the students thinking about why water is the best drink. It’s an important age group for us to target because the number of sugar sweetened beverages children tend to drink increases significantly once they get to high school,” Lisa said.

The District’s Healthy Children Initiative Team work on three NSW Health funded programs targeting childhood obesity in different settings, including Munch & Move, Live Life Well @ School and Go4Fun.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team’s face-to-face programs in child care services and schools were put on hold and staff were redeployed to help with the District’s response.

“During that time, we were unable to work with schools in our District so the competition was a way for us to re-engage with them. It was well-received and also boosted morale in our team too after a period disrupted by COVID,” Helen Dirkis, the Team’s manager, said.