Empowering Healthy Kids Blog

Spotted this in the local paper this morning. Woolworths are providing up to $5000 grants under their “Woolworths Fresh Food Kids Community Grants” programme to local community groups for projects that help Primary school aged children lead healthier more active lives.

Applications close 25 April 2008.

I was fortunate enough to go back to my home town of Perth, Western Australia for the Australia Day long weekend. On a sunny afternoon, with the Fremantle Doctor providing some relief, my brother Ash organised a neighbourhood match. After the obligatory 1/2 hour of dilly dallying while picking teams, it was on. We won by about 50 runs - as is normally the case no one really kept track of the score at the end.

One thing that struck me were the fact that the boys (age ranging from 12 to 30*) was that they just couldn’t keep still. Players waiting to bat, practiced in the nets, others played soccer. I could do the usual thing and analyse how video games, TV (Aussies were playing India in the 4th test that day, by the way) hadn’t affected these kids. But it was just great fun.

By the way, I scored 1 run from 5 balls; dropped a catch that went for six; and went 0-6 of two overs. Urghh.

This is where we played:

Winthrop Primary

* I was the 30 year old

Over the weekend I visited Ashcombe Maze, in the Mornington Peninsula region, south-east of Melbourne. Its claim to fame are its two hedge mazes, but for me it was the Great Gnome Hunt and the Fairy Hunt, that I enjoyed the most. Whilst these activities were meant for kids, I had a great time traipsing through the wonderful forrests and gardens looking for gnomes and fairies. There were a few families with kids also participating, running around trying to be the first to spot them in the trees above. It’s a great day activity for the family that gets them moving!

Here’s a satellite view of the maze:

Ashcombe Maze

A while back, I met the Health and Wellbeing Co-Ordinator at Clifton Hill Primary school who participates in the promoting healthy food (healthy canteeens, Free Fruit Fridays etc.). It seemed like an excellent programme and kids seemed to be responding well. Now, I’ve just read this:

A HEALTHY eating program run in almost 100 primary schools may have to be scrapped this year because of a lack of funding.

Just weeks out from the start of the school year, Nutrition Australia, which has run the Healthy Eating Schools program since 2005, is yet to secure a replacement sponsor for the $150,000- a-year program.

Last year’s corporate sponsor, the RACV, has pulled out, prompting Nutrition Australia to call on the State Government to step in.

Program manager Kelly Neville said 39,200 children participated in the program, which has led to a 30% drop in unhealthy items in some school canteens, while healthier canteen options have increased by 40%.

Michael Duffy comments on the fat test for 4 year olds:

‘One in four Australian children and one in two adults are already overweight or obese,” the Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, told a conference of obesity experts this week.

Where are they, minister? In the past fortnight, I’ve been in the centres of Sydney and Melbourne, in Newcastle and Katoomba, and in Sydney suburbs including Maroubra, Gladesville and Parramatta. I’ve seen plenty of fat adults but nothing like one in two. I’ve seen thousands of children, but were a quarter of them fat? No way.

So we have to ask again, where are they? Either Australia’s fat people are hiding, too scared to come out and incur the wrath of the Health Minister, or else something fishy is going on. As fishy as Roxon’s other claim, that obesity is costing the economy $21 billion a year.

The claims were made this week to justify the Government’s absurd plan to have every four-year-old weighed before they go to school, starting next year. This will add a quarter of a million extra tasks to the workload of our general practitioners and health clinics.

I commented earlier that the idea had some if it was used for non-identifiable, general statistics. I hadn’t considered the extra burden it would place on the health system. So I did some quick back of the envelope calculations. From the ABS National Schools Statistics Collection, 2003, there are 214,000 of pre-year 1’s (the targets of this test). Assume that each child takes 5 minutes to measure, record and collate the data. That’s an extra 17, 833 hours of labour required to conduct these tests.

New Australian health minister, Nicola Roxon, announced recently that, starting in 2009,  Body Mass Index (BMI) tests will be conducted on 4 year olds. While there is a lack of detail in this new policy, my immediate reaction is that it is a positive move ONLY if the results are confidential and use for statistical information only. We do not want to get into a situation where children a “branded” and stigmatised in schools.

This got me thinking (again) about the role of government in solving childhood obesity.  The role of government to educate and create an environment for people to make decisions for themselves. It is their role to create an environment so that the marketplace of ideas can flow freely and allow new innovative solutions to flourish. If, as a society, we decide to wait for a government solution,  organisations and individuals are discouraged from seeking their novel solutions as it becomes “the government’s problem.”

Most parents are aware of childhood obesity and can make informed decisions about their families health and wellbeing. Childhood obesity will not be solved by government “junk food” taxes and bans. It will be solved from the ground-up, from children, parents, schools, businesses and local communities. Let them figure out the solution.

Results just in:

A total of 312 primary schools across Victoria participated in last month’s Walktober Walk to School event which aimed to get ‘active transport’ - be it walking or cycling – on the daily agenda of families.

More than 56,000 Victorian children participated; that’s 18,000 more students than last year.

Twenty-nine primary schools reported that 100 per cent of students walked to school on the day, as compared with 15 schools in 2006.

Well done!

One of the dangers with highlighting health epidemics, such as childhood obesity, is the lack of objective balance. So when new research turns up that seems to contradict the prevailing wisdom, we must sit up and take notice. Reported today in The Age:

THE obesity epidemic among Australian children has been grossly overstated, according to a study that reveals the problem is concentrated among poorer families and some ethnic groups.

The study shows children from low-income families are twice as likely to be obese as children from high-income families, and their risks are increased if they are from Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, Aboriginal or southern European backgrounds. The study of health, fitness and fatness — based on a national sample of 8500 children aged six to 18 — is the first of its kind to measure social class and ethnicity.

Jenny O’Dea, associate professor of nutrition and health education at the University of Sydney, will present the findings today at the Community and Change conference, hosted by the university’s faculty of education and social work.

Dr O’Dea said the child obesity rate was “not rocketing out of control” and appeared to be levelling off.

“There’s a suggestion the whole of Australia is at risk of obesity and that’s been blown out of the water by this research,” she said.

The big increase in childhood obesity had occurred between 1985 and 1995 when the rate grew from 1.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

By 2006, the proportion of obese children had grown slightly to 6.3 per cent.

If these results are verified, this is welcome news. Further research needs to encouraged and we need to encourage these good news stories.

Yesterday, I mentioned the UK government’s policy on tackling the rise of childhood obesity. While I believe that the primary responsibility of the health and well being lies with the individual (with parents keeping a watchful eye in the case of children), government policy has a large impact on our lives. With more taxpayer funds being devoted to funding anti-obesity measures, it is important that we track the effectiveness of these programmes, to ensure that we are getting a sufficient “return on investment.”

A new provisional paper (pdf) released by King, Turnour and Wise, entitled: Analysing NSW state policy for child obesity prevention: strategic policy versus practical action. Here are the key research questions:

• Was it the right policy? For example, this form of analysis may take account of whether policy was evidence-based, and whether it was appropriate to the target group and social context.
• Was the scope and scale adequate? Was the scale and intensity of effort sufficient to achieve the policy goals?
• Was the policy effective? Did the policy achieve stated or intended goals or performance indicators? Were there any unintended consequences?
• Was it feasible? That is, did the available resources and infrastructure enable the policy to be implemented?

The researchers use the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) as their “golden model” and compare the New South Wales’ policy with the IOTF model. Whilst this is a provisional paper and more results will be obtained, it is important that the outcomes (eg. Body Mass Index, Fat Percentage indices, reduction in health costs) of children are measured and tracked, with a long-term, controlled study. This is the only way to measure the return on taxpayer-money from government’s implementation of policy.