05 August 2006

With one third of Kiwi kids overweight or obese, Kate Monahan talks to those taking steps to improve youngsters' nutrition and fitness before the damage is done.

CALLAN WORTHINGTON, almost three, has the look of a mountain climber. He clambers confidently up, over and down the bars of a colourful A-frame ladder. Mum Sarah Worthington, 22, steadies him as he turns to walk across a balance beam, watched closely by his gym instructor.

"Remember, one foot in front of the other. Hands out if you can," says Paula Poihipi, who is leading a group fitness session at Jumping Beans, a gym for kids aged six weeks to six years.

Callan is one of several children in Wednesday morning's Gym Beans class (for three to five-year-olds) at Old Saint Peter's Hall in Victoria St, Hamilton. They've been through warm-up exercises on the mat, and now kids are running, climbing, jumping, sliding and swinging over brightly coloured mini-size gym equipment laid out across the hall.

"He wouldn't let go of me at first," says Worthington, watching her dynamo son. "Now he's happy to do it on his own."

With one in three children now classified by health studies as overweight or obese, encouraging youngsters to enjoy exercise early is key for many parents.
"It's part of a new lifestyle," says Poihipi, mother of two, who started Jumping Beans in the Waikato this April. "It's no use waiting till later on, when it's too late."

Health Ministry figures show that Kiwi kids' waistlines are expanding. A 2002 National Children's Nutrition Survey found 21.3 per cent of children are overweight and 9.8 per cent are obese.

At least half of adults are not good role models -- 35 per cent are overweight and 21 per cent obese. It's an epidemic bursting at the seams. Adult obesity figures have doubled in a generation: in 1977, 10 per cent were obese, by 2003 it had become 21 per cent (according to Tracking the Obesity Epidemic, a 2004 report from the Healthy Ministry).

The health implications are huge. More than 200,000 New Zealanders are thought to have diabetes, and the numbers will grow as children get fatter, and turn into overweight or obese adults.

The Government has doubled its annual spending on school exercise and nutrition programmes in the latest budget, from $19 million to $38 million.

It's hard to fight the fat, with children surrounded by advertising for unhealthy energy-dense, low-nutrient snacks, like chips, lollies and soft drinks, and less likely than past generations to bike or walk to school, or play outside.

Jumping Beans founder Sophie Foster calls it an "obesogenic environment," where conditions under which we live encourage obesity.

"Babies spend lots of time in car seats, carried from car to supermarket trollies, or in baby strollers," says Foster, who set up her company in 1988 and now has eight kids' gym franchises around the North Island. She encourages mothers to let their babies spend some time on their stomachs during the day, which helps develop upper body strength, leading to crawling and walking.

"Kids learn through having fun," she says. "If you can link exercise with a fun experience you have set up a healthy pattern before they know any different."

Back at the Jumping Beans session, Paula Poihipi's daughter Eden, eight, swings on a horizontal bar and helps some of the younger kids, including her two-year-old sister Autumn. Eden's been doing Jumping Beans since she was in nappies, so, perhaps not surprisingly, isn't keen on television or PlayStation. "I like sports. I'd rather be here, it's more fun than watching TV," she says, grinning. "My sister, sometimes she doesn't want to leave."

THERE are signs Kiwi parents and kids want to make positive lifestyle changes. More than 4000 people applied to be on New Zealand television programme Fat Chance, which educates overweight kids and families about nutrition and exercise. Dietitian Nikki Hart, who hosts the show, still gets emails from parents seeking help.

She gives the example of a standard meat pie -- a Kiwi classic, with buttery pastry, gravy, meat, and maybe some cheese. Put it in a little hand, say the hand of a primary school child. "It's too big," she says. Portion sizes should be relative to the children's sizes. Pies are among what experts call a high-density energy bomb, full of fat and few nutrients, and our tuck shops are full of them.

A Green Party survey this year of 50 school tuckshops showed 90 per cent of them sell food high in fat and sugar, and in 30 per cent of schools, rolls or sandwiches are more expensive than pies.

"I remember when I was little, being allowed to buy a pie just once a week," says Hart. "We didn't have the access to cash to spend where we liked." She suggests children should have credit in the school tuckshop, rather than cash to spend.

Hart also suggests parents monitor kids' mindless snacking and time spent in front of the television or computer. "Allow two hours a day max, computer or TV, and once the two hours are up, tough luck. Sedentary behaviour promotes weight gain and you have to police it." She suggests schools measure and weigh children in an annual "health check up" along with a dental check.

Parents looking for help should look for a registered dietitian, or accredited nutritionist through the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation, she says. For those who take up the challenge to change their lifestyle, the proof is in the pudding. "The kids (on the show) lost five to six kilos on average," says Hart. "It's important to get kids started young (with fitness and healthy eating). Prevention is better than the cure. It's easier to do something about it at seven or eight than by the time a child has reached early adolescence."

SCHOOLS ARE taking up the challenge.

In Cambridge this week, the St Peter's Catholic School playground is a riot of flailing legs, flying arms, and happy grins. Forty or so 10 to 12-year-olds are leaping through the air in unison. It's Thursday noon, and the music is pumping. Teacher Trisha Honey stands on the top of the stairs in sweats, her blonde hair tied back, leading the Year 5-8 children in Jump Jam, an aerobics-style dance programme, which the kids clearly love.

"Who let the dogs out?" asks the popular song, and the children answer with barks, reaching forward with paw-like punches, working up a sweat and having fun.

"I'm getting way fitter," says Jacki Welten, 10, who sometimes helps with dance demonstrations and cueing the music. "I've got more elevation and I'm faster with moving my feet and with co-ordination."

Jump Jam is just one of the programmes the school has introduced in the past year, since Project Energize came to town. The Waikato District Health Board-sponsored project is being trialled in 62 Waikato schools, working to improve health, nutrition and fitness for students. Each school has an "Energizer" -- a skilled Sport Waikato staffer, to help develop plans for the school. Anton Barr is the man at St Peter's. He has six schools under his wing, and has been supporting them since the two-year study began in February last year. "My aim is to get the children eating better foods and to be more active at school and home," he says. "It's about working with the existing health and PE curriculum and bringing in extra resources and information."

Principal Debra White is over the moon about Project Energize and its impact on her 174 students. "It's really good, the change has been significant here. The students are all loving it."

In term two, the school did a unit on healthy eating, developed by Barr, measuring sugar and fat in foods. Children hadn't realised there were 15 teaspoons of sugar in a 600ml bottle of coke, and many soon changed to water. Project Energize staff held an parent night. "A lot of parents don't have a huge knowledge base either," Barr says. "They don't always know what foods are healthy and what are not."

The school has made changes to nutrition and the tuckshop. On Wednesdays, students can order filled rolls from Subway, which parents coordinate. "It's getting really popular, and (orders for) pies and cookies have really dropped off," says White.

Smaller portion sizes have been introduced -- instead of offering giant cookies, they now sell bite-size cookies. It's a food philosophy they are trying to extend to all aspects of school life, says White, even fundraisers. "We haven't had a sausage sizzle all year." Instead they use boiled hotdogs.

There are games to help kids implement fitness and nutrition lessons at home, challenging children to eat healthy breakfasts or walk or cycle to school each day. Prizes for completing challenges include balls, hacky sacks and Frisbees, not chocolate.

Dr David Graham, the paediatrician leading the Waikato-based Project Energize study, says each school's programme is different, based on their needs, developed in conjunction with teachers. The two-year study, tracking changes in the 62 schools and among students (five and 10 year olds) will be measured against 63 control schools, which do not do Project Energize.

The Waikato District Health Board has invested $2.3 million in the programme, and Graham hopes for support from the Health Ministry to develop Project Energize around New Zealand.

"The feedback has been positive," he says. Results won't be through until next year, with the study winding up this November.

HEALTH Minister Pete Hodgson says Project Energize is one of an estimated 450-500 programmes in communities around the country tackling fitness, nutrition and obesity related issues.

"Childhood obesity is a very serious problem in New Zealand," he says. "Ten or 15 years ago it was not recognised as the problem it is now."

The Fruit In School programme is another aimed at improving children's nutrition. It was launched last year in 114 low-decile schools around the country.

Nawton School in Hamilton, a decile-one school, was on the DHB-sponsored programme until recently.

"Kids really enjoy a piece of fruit," says principal Mike Sutton. "We received nashis, apples, pears, mandarins, kiwifruit, apples -- it was great." Unfortunately, the contract ran out several weeks ago, but the children were already hooked on healthy eating. "The kids complain if they can't have fruit now," says Sutton. The school's Board of Trustees, seeing value in the programme, will sponsor daily apples for the students from now on.

It's not just about healthy eating, it's also about getting rid of some of the unhealthy items in kids' diets. Hodgson says the Government will target the removal of sugary drinks in schools and a "traffic-light" labelling system may be developed. Water -- a green-sticker drink -- can be drunk freely, but juice -- an orange-label beverage, should be limited. "We are telling the main drink companies to clean up what is sold in schools," the minister says.

Food labelling is harder. Foods can't be banned from tuckshops, but they can be encouraged to source healthier food. "If we have a regulatory future, ban this or ban that, you are creating a rules-based approach to the problem," says Hodgson. "It has to be a change of life from within. If we said tomorrow, there is no chocolate allowed, straightaway a black market for it would spring up."

He suggests parents ask their GPs for food and exercise advice and take their children to doctors regularly. "Keep an eye on their weight, don't diet, just eat sensibly, and with the days getting longer, kids should be outside, not watching TV."

AT St Peter's, it's now lunchtime. Children swarm out of classrooms, carrying lunch boxes and school bags, sitting on the steps in groups.

"I like healthy food," five-year-old Aimee Muir declares, opening her lunch box.

There's a cut-up orange, a half-eaten plain biscuit, a jam sandwich. Haylee Lafferty, also five, sits next to Aimee. She proudly waves a filled roll in the air.

Six-year-olds Emma Hepworth and Lovepreet Singh have a giggle, playing telephones with their bananas. "Hello?" says Emma, picking up her banana, holding it to her ear. "Hello, Lovepreet, I'm ringing you."

Lovepreet grabs her banana, puts it up to her ear, and they both collapse in toothy giggles.

Here, at least, the healthy eating message seems to be getting through.