How do you get the more than 12,000 students who live on UBC’s Vancouver campus to adopt positive health and eating behaviours? This is the challenge that Melissa Baker faced every day as Manager, Nutrition and Wellbeing with UBC Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS).
And now, for the next year, she will be broadening her focus while working with 16,000 faculty and staff members as the Workplace Wellbeing Strategist with Human Resources.
Her trick is to change the environment and make healthy options more accessible. Now, if you order a menu item at any UBC dining room, it likely comes with a whole grain option as the default. You actually have to make an effort to order something less healthy.
“How I see it, is that if we are well, we will think better, be more productive, work better and do our research better,” says Melissa. “My aim is for people to see that healthy eating can be pleasurable, sustainable, affordable and easy.”
A Registered Dietitian, Melissa enjoys using her passion for nutrition, food, and cooking to inspire others to eat well. She first discovered the profession as a third-year microbiology student at UBC Okanagan. It seemed like the perfect match, so she switched majors and moved to UBC Vancouver to pursue a degree in dietetics. Later, she went on to attain a Master of Health Sciences in Nutrition Communications from Ryerson University.
“I feel very lucky to be able to combine my passion with my career,” she says. “To be able to come back to UBC—where it all began for me as a dietetics student—has been incredibly fulfilling.”
From October 2016 to early this year, Melissa had been focusing her energy on improving the health behaviours of UBC students living in residence.
“Working with first-year students was most exciting for me,” says Melissa. “This is a transformational year for them. It is typically the first time they are on their own, and they are managing huge workloads and stress. Many have never cooked or shopped for groceries before.”
She helped these students on a one-on-one basis and in groups. She even ran a healthy grocery shopping program at Save-On Foods in collaboration with her dietitian colleagues in Athletics and Recreation and UBC Food Services. But her most widespread influence was likely through the work she did with the culinary team at the residence dining rooms.
Melissa worked closely with Executive Chef and Culinary Director David Speight to create UBC’s Food Vision and Values, which defines how UBC Food Services will create memorable food experiences in a socially and ecologically conscious manner. As a result, the team now shapes menus that incorporate more local ingredients and plant-based options that are prepared inhouse. Their bold experiment was recently featured on an episode of CBC’s The Nature of Things entitled Food For Thought: Transforming Diet.
“Residence dining rooms offer the most affordable and healthy options on campus,” says Melissa. “And they are open to staff and faculty, not only students.”
Melissa is proud of the university’s leadership in health and wellbeing and feels completely supported in her role.
“UBC is really committed to wellbeing,” she says. “In October 2016, we became one of the first universities in the world to sign the Okanagan Charter [an international charter for health promoting universities and colleges, which calls upon post-secondary schools to embed health into all aspects of campus culture and to lead health promotion action and collaboration locally and globally]. Wellbeing is currently embedded in the UBC Strategic Plan where one of the university’s ten big goals includes ‘Lead globally and locally in sustainability and wellbeing across our campuses and communities’.”
She also points out that HR’s Healthy Workplace Initiative Program (HWIP) was key to it being named one of BC’s Top Employers in 2019. This annual fund is available to UBC departments and units to support grassroots activities that promote wellbeing in the workplace. Melissa successfully accessed this money in early 2017 and launched a healthy cooking class for employees at SHHS. It was so successful that now the department is self-funding an ongoing series of classes.
Having just started her secondment with HR, Melissa is excited about the opportunity to advance the work of the health, wellbeing and benefits portfolio. In the coming year, she will be working with Faculties, departments and units to help them build capacity and integrate wellbeing into workplace practices, which ultimately supports staff and faculty to reach their full potential.
“It is important to recognize that wellbeing is foundational to our success as individuals, and as a university and community,” says Melissa.
“I’m looking forward to working with faculty and staff and being the voice at the table that helps to empower them to take ownership over their Faculty, department or unit’s wellbeing.”
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Melissa’s healthy favourites on campus There are a number of great options for healthy eating across campus, all year round. Some of Melissa’s favourites are:
Melissa’s favourite residence dining rooms, which are open during term time, include:
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Erica Branda
On behalf of the Internal Communications team