Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

Via ClickPress:

ThinQFitness, the digital TV content company, and The Department of Health’s Change4Life movement, today announce a partnership to combat child obesity with a series of online videos, encouraging families to get together and exercise to avoid obesity and poor health.

As part of the Change4Life campaign to “eat well, move more and live longer,” ThinQFitness is providing a series of online family fitness videos to support the Change4Life messaging. Available online at http://www.thinqfitness.com/, the videos are aimed initially at helping families get kids “up and about’ and doing their “60 active minutes”. Further free videos will become available on the site over the coming weeks, and will address the complete Change4Life message around healthy eating and physical activity.

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are looking at ways to combat child obesity:

Donna Spruijt-Metz, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, will present an overview of the KNOWME NETWORKS study — a program to develop a Mobile Body Area Network that monitors obesity indicators in minority youth.

The network, developed in conjunction with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, will use a set of wearable wireless sensors that measure physical activity, stress, location in time and space, body fat and a number of other factors. Data will be immediately transmitted to a secure server for storage and analyses. The KNOWME device will be calibrated for the specific user, and researchers will be able to “ping” a participant who remains sedentary for too long, Spruijt-Metz says.

Her presentation includes findings of a study led by colleague Michael I. Goran, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine, physiology and biophysics and pediatrics, and director of the USC Childhood Obesity Research Center at the Keck School of Medicine. The study looks at the impact of a computer-based education program on promoting physical activity in fourth-grade students.

Two Los Angeles County schools used interactive CD-ROMS for an eight-week long health curriculum, while two control schools received educational CD-ROMS not related to health. Researchers found that the program had a significant impact on obesity reduction in girls, but not in boys.

The results reflect the fact that girls and boys have very different activity levels and attitudes about activity, and that interventions will need to be tailored more specifically, Spruijt-Metz says. However, she believes the study also indicates that technology is an important tool in preventing obesity in youth.

“Technology gives us more objective and reliable measures than self-reporting,” she says. “It is particularly appealing because it offers immediate feedback and will allow interventionists and health professionals to respond directly to the child’s behavior as part of the intervention.”

Provided schools are given a choice on using this new technology then I think this is a good idea. It has the same ambitions as my Zippeddy project.

This is an interesting programme for kids in Suffolk Country, UK. The Suffolk Challenge aims to get Suffolk kids to be the healthiest in the nation by 2012, by having them register for the Activity Challenge.

More kids info available here too.

Get Movin’, a YMCA initiative, starts today:

Get Movin’ is a free summer program aimed at motivating families to Get Movin’ and improve their health by adopting a more active, healthy lifestyle through physical and recreational activities. 

Their also includes 20 Ways to Get Movin’:

1. Go for a walk

2. Do sit-ups in front of the television

3. Join an athletic team

4. Work in the yard

5. Ride your bike

6. Wash the car(s)

7. Exercise with friends

8. Go swimming

9. Go for a run on the beach

10. Play Frisbee at the park

11. Go to the beach and fly a kite

12. Jump rope

13. Play at the playground

14. Shoot hoops

15. Play tag

16. Play catch

17. Go for a hike

18. Lift weights

19. Play soccer

20. Walk or jog at a track

Microsoft have announced Project Natal for Xbox 360, a way of playing video games without a controller using motion sensing. Think of it as the Wii without the Wiimote. If the trailer looks anything like the real thing, then I’m impressed:

Great for getting children active!

I had the distinct pleasure of giving a talk to 100 or so kids about inventors and inventing. I had been trialling Zippeddy at this school and by luck, for this term, they were learning about inventions through the ages. I told them how I came up with the idea of Zippeddy and the process of creating such a product (along with the trials and tribulations). My observations:

• Kids are easily impressed with the smallest things (just a PCB circuit board with a few lights excites them) and like the fact that something made made “just for them” and looks cool.
• A sizable portion (about 30%) opened up electronic gadgets to see what was in them. I told to keep doing that
• One smart kid said”Are you going to make this in China, cos of the labour?” - I replied with the truth that the parts would be made in China but assembled here in Melbourne.
• Many (including the teachers) wanted to know how you come up with the idea. I replied by saying I wanted to make kids be physically active and I had the skills and knowledge in engineering to do this - thus the concept of a web enabled kids pedometer was born.
• One student asked how do I promote my product? I thought that this kid, not only understands inventing, but business as well.
• Many asked when it will be in shops. I replied that we are trying to get it into schools first, then into shops later.

Afterwards I stuck around and many more kids asked more questions. Some even pitched their ideas to me. Overall, I was impressed with their inquisitiveness and desire to create new things.

Today is Walk to School Day!

Today and Aussie Apples are running a competition to find Australia’s Healthiest School. Here the skinny:

All you have to do is film a 60 second video showing us why your school is the healthiest school in Australia and you must include apples in your video.

See here for more info. Entries close 22 May 2009.

UPDATE: Winner announced (with video).

I have been working with the wonderful kids and teachers at Silverton Primary School. So far, feedback on Zippeddy has been positive and the students have been quite excited by it. They are also keen to add their 2c as well on how it can be improved too… which is great!

Follow trial updates via Twitter.

I like this:

Play is serious business for KaBOOM!, a national non-profit aimed at locating and funding play spaces. The organization has launched a campaign to locate 100,000 play spaces — playgrounds, skate parks and field complexes — in 100 days in an effort to ensure there is a play space within walking distance of every child.

Through its online play space locator, KaBOOM! is asking parents, teachers and community leaders to enter and rate their local play spaces. For every play space entered, $1 will be donated to charity in the name of country music singer and two-time Dancing With the Stars winner Julianne Hough. The result will help parents locate the best play spaces in their area and provide an honest analysis to community leaders of whether they have enough quality play spaces, says CEO Darell Hammond.