"In this job, there’s no instant gratification. It takes a long time to see results because in prevention, the outcome is nothing happens! It’s hard to measure wellness."
“I joined Fraser health in 2000 as a licensing dietitian. Now I’m working as a public health dietitian doing upstream prevention. In this job, there’s no instant gratification. It takes a long time to see results because in prevention, the outcome is nothing happens! It’s hard to measure wellness.
In New Westminster school district we’ve been working with the board on a “No child is hungry and every child eats healthy” motion to improve school meals and teach students food literacy. Canada’s the only G-8 nation without a national school meal program. So we’re doing advocacy, working on the ground level. I hope to see results in five years – that’s instant gratification here.
I live in New West with my husband and children in a 100-year-old house we’re restoring ourselves. We hunt antique fairs and scrape layers of paint; it’s a labour of love. And we travel a lot. We just finished our 25th house exchange. We spent a month in Brazil and we’ve been to Spain, France, Sweden, Australia, Poland, for just the cost of tickets. The world’s a better place when people travel and see the world isn’t so different, it’s just a matter of what you know.”
- Deanna Tan, Public Health Dietitian, Burnaby, New Westminster and Delta