T The next time you pass your local elementary or high school, take a close look at the kids in the schoolyard. Approximately 26% will be obese, with many more considered clinically overweight – earning Canada recognition as 5th highest in the world for childhood obesity. Of greater concern to health professionals is that the incident of childhood obesity has tripled since 1980 – shocking but not surprising given that 60% of Canadian adults are also clinically overweight or obese today.

It’s not baby fat
An excess accumulation of body fat impairs a person’s health. Obesity at any age results in considerable mental, social, and physical challenges. But experts warn that the medical risks to children are cause for greater concern. The longer an individual is overweight or obese, the more likely they are to develop chronic life-threatening diseases. Fully preventable conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and hypertension are presenting in younger Canadians more than ever before.

Problem or pandemic?
Dr. Ian Janssen of Queen’s University suggests that we are facing a national crisis. “Obesity is a pandemic in Canada that is growing”, says Dr. Janssen. “I equate it to an iceberg – the tip of the iceberg is the problem we have today in 2006 – but what we don’t see is what’s lurking under the water. The potential is massive – imagine when all of our obese children become obese adults.” Solutions require a two-pronged approach – individuals changing their behaviour, combined with communities choosing different policies to build a healthier population, according Dr. Rena Mendelson, Professor of Nutrition at Ryerson University.

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How did this happen?
Researchers tell us that our children become overweight because they simply aren’t active enough and eating too much of the wrong food for healthy growth and development.

It’s not their fault. In today’s world of busy kids and parents, time runs at a premium. Minivans become dining rooms; fast, convenient food replaces nutritious choices that require time to prepare.

Dr. Mendelson adds, “Portion size is out of control – fast food retailers offer incentives to ‘super size’; the average single-serving of a soft drink is double the volume of those sold ten years ago.”

Simple choices, major changes
Stats Canada recently published the first snapshot of Canadian eating habits in 35 years. The Community Health Study on nutrition found that the Canadian diet is high in fats and lacking in fruits, vegetables and dairy. “The dietary results explain why we’re seeing the kinds of obesity issues that we’re seeing,” says Dr. Mendelson. 70% of our children do not consume the minimum daily requirement of five servings of fruits and vegetables; and, 61% of boys and 83% of girls aged 10 to 16 years do not consume the minimum of three servings of dairy a day – a significant concern since roughly 40% of calcium in bones gets deposited during these formative years.

The Community Health Study on nutrition found that the Canadian diet is high in fats and lacking in fruts, vegetables and dairy.

One might worry that our children are not getting enough to eat but the opposite is true. They’re consuming record amounts of snack foods, high in sugar and fat, and low in the body building nutrients they really need.

The Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) recently studied healthy eating and physical activity in Nova Scotia’s children. Students in grades 5 to 8 from six schools identified poor selection of healthy foods both at home and school as the key barrier to eating a healthier diet.

The children offered these suggestions to help them make healthier food choices:

• parents to encourage healthy eating from a young age (but not in a forceful way)
• make healthy recipes taste better
• involve kids in shopping and food preparation
• healthy foods must be available at school and convenience stores, replacing high sugar and fat (junk) foods and beverages.

Upping the activity
We’ve engineered physical activity out of our lifestyle: “Walking to school and taking the stairs are basics of physical activity. They have a greater impact on overall health and weight management than going to the gym”, says Dr. Robert Ross, a Professor at Queen’s University.

Olympian Silken Laumann shares this sentiment in her book, Childs Play, reporting that children are almost half as active today as they were 15 years ago.

The problem is significant enough to warrant the development of the first-ever national guidelines on physical activity for children and youth; every province is investing in healthy living strategies, each with a component specific to kids.

Changing perception and behaviour
Healthy Kids Canada found that 80% to 90% of parents perceive that their child is getting a good amount of daily physical activity. In truth, only 50% of children meet the minimum standard required for healthy development and growth. Furthermore, only 36% of parents regularly engage in physical activity with their children. So it seems that both children and parents can benefit immediately by turning off the TV/computer and finding ways to be active together – riding bikes, going for a walk, playing catch, etc.

How did this happen?

Healthy Kids Canada recommends:

• increase family-based physical activity
• reduce screen time to two hours a day max
• increase structured daily physical activity delivered through schools.

“Most important is to make sure the activities are fun!” says Dr. Ross. It shouldn’t feel like work, the motivation has to be fun. H&L

Shannon MacDonald, Principal Consultant for Bliss Communications is the mother of two young girls.