How teachers can help and support obese children and their families to reduce the numbers of obesity.

A child educated only at school

is an uneducated child.

  ~George Santayana

Feeney, Moravcik, Nolte and Christenson (2010) says that children need to have the support and understanding of teachers to achieve at the best. This is the same for children that are obese. They need to have teachers support and understanding from teachers to help loss weight so they are not obese or to have the teachers help in understanding about food that may cause obesity.

Research reports show that  there are more children in a form of early childcare settings in the last five years in New Zealand than in the past (O’Brian and Taylor, 2004). As times changed more people are entering the work force and view it as easier to use packet food instead of fresh food in children’s and their own lunch. Food and drink intake is a direct link to the obesity rate. 5+ a day was introduced the purpose of this is to eat five or more fruits and/or vegetables a day to create a healthier lifestyle for children and adults. It aims to promote awareness of the importance of having five or more fruit and/or vegetables (Ashfield – Watt, 2006). However many families are finding it easier to supply their children with package food and not fresh food.

What I was wondering is do teachers help support families into knowing and understanding what healthy food is and why it important?

Plunket offers advice on what food children should eat depending on their age they have posters that are free to centres and parents.

Some of their posters and pamphlets include:

-Finger food ideas

-Vegetables and fruit  for children

- Ways to include vegetables and fruit into children day in a fun way

-Lunch box ideas

-Easy to prepare food

-Making healthy food (Plunket, n.d.).

Many centres have these pamphlets and having this information centres may be able to help families to gain knowledge to provide healthy eating and pack healthy lunches for their children.

There are resources available from SPARC which are available from regional sports trust that provides information about active movement for children under five. They have pamphlets available to show what active movement is and why it is important for children to participate in. Some of the resources on offer are:

-          Active movement brochures

-          Introduction to active movement brochures

-          Active Movement DVDs

-          Play Gym – Building blocks for life

-          Active movement in water and

-          Moving to learn. (SPARK: ihi Aoteroa sport and recreation New Zealand, 2011).

Some centres have a healthy eating policy that helps teachers promote healthy eating. A healthy eating nutrition policy helps teachers to follow guidelines set forth to help with healthy eating. Having a healthy eating policy and centres that is shared with families is important as they are the ones that are packing children’s food and it is important that they understand healthy eating and are provided with information surrounding healthy eating. There are some families out there that do not understand healthy eating or may feel it does not matter what children eat as they are still young.

I believe that with families and teachers working together to provide healthy eating for children is important to help reduce the high number of obese children in New Zealand.

             

References

Ashfield-Watt, P. AL. (2006). Fruits and vegetables, 5+ a day: are we getting the

message across?, 15(2), 245-252. Retrieved from http://library.eit.ac.nz:2053/pqcentral/docview/213832647/12EFFB4AB1EBCD79CD/4?accountid=39646

O’Brian, B. & Taylor, Dr. R. (2004). The f word: A New Zealand Guide to preventing childhood obesity. Auckland, New Zealand: David Bateman Ltd.

Plunket: Whānau āwhina: Caring for young families (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.plunket.org.nz/

SPARK: ihi Aotearoa sport and recreation New Zealand. (2011). Retrieved from  http://www.sparc.org.nz/en-nz/young-people/Ages-0-5-Years/.  

Feeney, S., Moravcik, E., Nolte, S., & Christensen, D. (2010). Who am I in the lives of children? An introduction to early childhood education. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

Videos I have Found Relating To Obesity

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I have found these two videos that have been in the news.

The first is called overeaters anonymous - addressing the emotional side of obesity

The second video I found is about a family that are obese and how to help them to achieve losing weight

I found many videos about obesity in children. I feel that these to videos are important when dealing with obesity as many other videos are more focused on the physical side of obesity.

Is the New Zealand society helping to reduce the amount of obese children?

“When I was 5 years old,

my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.

When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn’t understand the assignment.
I told them they didn’t understand life."
— John Lennon

There are many sports at primary school that children are involved in like push play, five + a day and compulsory sport activities. But what is there that children under five to participate in.

There are outdoor environments where children are able to run around have sports equipment and be free but is this really reducing the obesity rate and helping stop it in children.

What is New Zealand doing to encourage healthy eating?

Sanitarium is in the process of proposing a three traffic light food labelling system. It identifies “negative” nutrients. At the same time, it takes into account “positive” nutrients through a colour scheme based on the nutrient found in food. This is helping people to distinguish between healthy foods, non healthy food and food that looks healthy but is full of negative nutrients.

Push play was introduced to New Zealand to inspire New Zealanders to become more active. Push play’s primary focus was on women between the age of 25 – 50. The focus was mainly on women as they were viewed as less physical then males. In 2005 it was reviewed and changed to initiate all children into the push play programme that was organised for 30 – 60 minutes of physical activity a day. There are many resources that have been created for children under 5 to participating in physical movement experiences (SPARK: ihi Aoteroa sport and recreation New Zealand, 2011).

Tartamella, Herscher and Woolston (2004) say that  with push play programme of 30 – 60 minutes a day of healthy eating that children are getting enough physical activity to reduce obesity rate and to get more children healthy. However, O’Brian and Taylor (2004) say that this is not going to reduce obesity rates unless children have healthy eating as well and that there needs to be more physical activity offered to children from 0 – 12.

So who is right? There is research that shows healthy eating and physical activity will help reduce the number of obese people and help people already obese loss weight but there is also research that shows healthy eating is the most important thing however I found a minimal amount of research that shows eating healthy alone will help with obesity.

I found this video on you tube that shows why there are many obese people around especially in pacific islanders. I found it very interesting to watch and see why obesity is so high in communities that grow and have built their life on eating fruit.

There are many things that the New Zealand community can do or are doing to lower the obesity rate however there are also many things that they are doing that are keeping the obesity rate high, like losing our fruit and vegetables to overseas and advertising and lowering cost of processed foods.

References:

O’Brian, B. & Taylor, Dr. R. (2004). The f word: A New Zealand Guide to preventing childhood obesity. Auckland, New Zealand: David Bateman Ltd.

SPARK: ihi Aotearoa sport and recreation New Zealand. (2011). Retrieved from  http://www.sparc.org.nz/en-nz/young-people/Ages-0-5-Years/.   

Tartamella, L., Herscher, E., & Woolston, C. (2004). Generation extra large: Rescuing our children from the epidemic of obesity. New York, NY: Basic Books.