$67 million to improve NZ lifestyles and nutrition

[Pseudonym]

This is a press release the Government has sent out today...

Mission-On healthy lifestyles package for young Kiwis

The Prime Minister Helen Clark today announced Mission-On, a $67 million Government-wide package of initiatives to help young New Zealanders improve their nutrition and be more active.

"We have always been known as a country of fit, active people and the Labour-led government believes this is a legacy worth protecting. An epidemic of obesity threatens to undo the significant progress made in improving our health and quality of life.

"Unless something changes, the current generation of young New Zealanders may very well be the first to die at a younger age than their parents.

"Mission-On is a package aimed at giving New Zealand's children, young people and their families the tools to become healthier, so they can lead active and successful lives.

"By improving nutrition and reversing the declining levels of physical activity among young Kiwis, New Zealand will be much better placed to prevent obesity," said Helen Clark.

The Mission-On package includes:

- Improving nutrition in schools and early childhood education services

- School-based health promotion events

- A new 'lifestyle ambassadors' campaign featuring high-profile New Zealanders

- Encouraging the advertising industry to take measures to decrease children's exposure to the advertising of less healthy foods

- The creation of youth-focused websites to promote healthy eating and physical activity

- Sponsorship of television and radio programmes that promote healthy choices

- A 'screen-free' campaign to encourage less time in front of television and computers

- Government departments leading by example in the promotion of healthy workplaces

- An expansion of the 'Green Prescription' programme

- The introduction of Health Impact Assessments for new government policy and legislation.

"With the right resources young people, their families and their communities can act together to make healthier choices," said Helen Clark.

ENDS

And here's the National party's response...

Schools told to solve yet another problem

Schools should not be asked to solve the obesity problem on top of all the social problems they are expected to solve every day, says National’s Education spokesman, Bill English.

He is commenting on the Government’s announcement today of an action plan for schools and early childhood education services to promote healthy eating and physical activity.

“Teachers have only limited time and it’s already filled with the demands of teaching children and dealing with their social problems,” says Mr English.

“The Government wants teachers to do professional development on nutrition, but in the real world teachers can only do so much professional development.

“Time spent on professional development for nutrition and obesity is time not spent on literacy and numeracy.

“This is another solution foisted on schools when the problem lies elsewhere.

“The Government should give our teachers a fair go at teaching the basics, and deal with obesity using the family and home as a way to effect change.”

ENDS

So what do you think? Is it a good idea for schools to teach healthy lifestyles and nutrition? At least you know the kids are getting it that way. Or is Bill English right - our schools have enough to deal with already, and it's the parents' job to encourage kids to be active?

[2guns]

mr. helen clark can go to hell

[mr yoyo]

schools cant correct what parents spend a lifetime showing by example....

how many really fat kids do you see that have really fat parents??

monkey see,monkey do

[2guns]

on a more serious note it come down to peronal choice like all things in life!!!

im not a parent so cant comment on how to feed your kids...

all i can say though is this sounds like a lot of bullshit and another way to waste taxpayer money!

and is definetly not the schools responisbility. school is there to teach kids to read and write and solve maths etc. not keep them skinny!

[chop]

protein shakes should be readilbly avaiable to students in schools

[2guns]

protein shakes should be readilbly avaiable to students in schools

is this a joke?

get real mate, having just turned 20 a couple of weeks ago, to most of my mates and my 16 year old brothers mates protein shakes would be the last thing they would spend their $$$ on.

just being realistic about this.

[chop]

:grin: :nod:

[sponge]

schools cant correct what parents spend a lifetime showing by example....

how many really fat kids do you see that have really fat parents??

monkey see,monkey do

touche'

[Pseudonym]

But we all know the parents aren't teaching the kids good habits. It's all very well to say it's the parent's responibility, and not the state's problem - but it becomes the state's problem when the kids grow up and start having health problems. Isn't it cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run to step in before the problems occur?

[jsome1]

you have made the big mistake of generalising pseudo

[2guns]

hmm its a big problem and will take a long time to fix.

i also think that not many people really care too much as long as its not affecting them directly.

at the end of the day im still paying the same amount of taxes weather the population is fat or not.

and if it gets wasted on obese peoples health probs i dont really care because if it aint used for that its just gonna get wasted on something else.

[Pseudonym]

When you say I'm generalising, jsome1, in what way do you mean? Sure it's only some parents that aren't passing on good habits to their kids, and not all of those kids will grow up to have health problems as a result. But there are still more than enough to cause a big problem for society.

Here's a few facts from http://www.ecologic.org.nz/index.cfm/obesity

- The rise in type 2 diabetes-the greatest contributor to the diabetes epidemic - is strongly linked to an increasingly overweight and obese population.

- Services to people with diabetes cost New Zealand taxpayers $247 million per year, and this figure is likely to rise to over $1 billion by 2021 with the increasing incidence of diabetes.

- A person with diabetes costs the New Zealand health system 2.5 times as much as a person without diabetes.

With costs like $247 million per year and $1 billion being tossed around, the Goverment's $67 million won't need to make much of a dent before it pays for itself. At less than 30% of the figure currently being spent at the bottom of the cliff, I'd say it's worth putting the ambulance at the top just to see what happens.

The point is, 2guns, this does affect you directly. If fat people are clogging the health system, they're eating up valuable resources. Resources that could otherwise be spent on your own operation.

Secondly, if the health system is over-stretched, it requires more funding to create more resources to take the extra weight. Those funds have to come from somewhere. You either do without other services to pay for them, or pay more taxes. Either way, it affects you directly.

[Pseudonym]

I've just been looking at the World Health Organisation's website. They've got a very nifty comparison tool, which I used to check the obesity rates of various countries - after all, what better way to spend a Friday night?!

Here's the results comparing the prevalence of obesity in 2005 between NZ, Australia, US, UK, and Italy. It's a bit worrying - is it saying that 1 in 3 NZ females is obese, or am I reading that wrong?

Click here to have a play with it yourself...

[jsome1]

Hehe i will give you that one purely on the basis you are researching the WHO wbesite at that hour on a Fri night/Sat morn :wink:

[mr yoyo]

that comment was actually on the rock when they broke the story.i think they said 1 in 2 tho.

2guns, you say you dont care....but would you if a family member was seeking medical treatment and some person who doesnt care about their health was taking up the bed that your relative needed, all due to "complications" caused by their life style??

I do think that people work longer and harder hours these days just to afford housing etc esp. in AK, so as a side effect, they feed there kids whatever is easier, go home and cook something clean ...or quick mcd's for screaming kids after 8 hours stress??not a hard choice.. as a side to this,if you live in South auckland, then you dont take your kids to the park to play and excersize because of the scum that inevitably inhabits those areas.

bring on tax cuts, and remove benifits for the lazy and system abusers.

[poos_n_wees]

But we all know the parents aren't teaching the kids good habits. It's all very well to say it's the parent's responibility, and not the state's problem - but it becomes the state's problem when the kids grow up and start having health problems. Isn't it cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run to step in before the problems occur?

100% agree wit this... prevention is better than cure! Very scary to think that most of our kids may grow up diabetic.. eeeek.

Wasn't there a similar thread to this about the government introducing compulsory PE in schools?

And like mr yoyo said - people aren't taking their kids out to play much anymore - and its not just happening in South Auckland, its everywhere. Parents tend to "bubble wrap" their kids these days. We're all so scared of our kids getting run over or picked up by some weirdo that we keep them in the house (hence: playstations, dvds, TV etc) so we know exactly where they are at all times. As for food - you'd be surprised at the amount of ppl that can't cook, or don't have the skills to budget their money properly. Lots of underlying problems..

But yup, I think the Mission-On package is a great idea. Educate the kids, and they take home and teach their family.. awesome.

[shane]

I think its a great idea by Helen Clake some of the kids could teach their parents on the nutrition side of thins, lets face it some kids are poorly fed and what they can learn now wiil benefit them later on in life. Maori and pacific island people have the biggest risk of diseases than other races lets support schools and help them out with this and let the kids have a chance to understand what nutrition is all about :grin:

[THEBERG]

But we all know the parents aren't teaching the kids good habits. It's all very well to say it's the parent's responibility, and not the state's problem - but it becomes the state's problem when the kids grow up and start having health problems. Isn't it cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run to step in before the problems occur?

this is so true, by educating and fixing/preventing the problem before it becomes aproblem will cost the taxpayer less in the long run. Schools shouldnt be just teaching maths, science etc but should inlcude real life pratical eaducation that is more identifible with the average person adult life.

[The Legend Killer]

I think it's great, we really need to nip the obesity rates in the butt or else the pressure on our health system is going to get worse and worse. The reason why people have to wait years on waiting lists for operations is because it's clogged with people suffering from the effects of obesity. It may be the parent's responsibility to monitor their children's nutrition, but unfortunately looking at the child obesity stats it isn't happening. As Pseudonym said, it's a huge cost to our country, in fact I've seen reports saying that it costs the country 7% of total GDP, when factoring the strain on our health system and loss in productivity.

Typical National though moaning about our clogged health system and then moaning about measures taken to help reduce this.

[Pseudonym]

I agree it's great that some attempt is being made by the Govt to fix the situation before it gets out of control. My only concern is whether it's better to target the adults, hoping they'll pass the good habits on to their kids, or the kids, hoping they'll teach the adults...

I guess you could argue that it's pointless trying to teach the kids good habits when they go home and see Mum and Dad blobbing on the couch, eating KFC and McDs. :?

[The Legend Killer]

You can't ingrain things in adults like you can in children though. Best you could do for adults is have a 30 second ad where Tana Umaga eats some fruit.

[dcx17]

Back when I was in primary school in the early-mid 80's, there were hardly any fat kids in school - primary school just one or two, intermediate, less than 10 I can remember. We didn't have a school shop selling junk - we didn't have a school shop! If you didn't bring lunch from home, you could order it from a catering agency which had an office, but it was things like a salad roll - no pies, chips, hot dogs or fried stuff.

There was less fast food advertising than now (fewer chains, though), and visiting Mc D's was a treat, nor did we have fish and chips often, but that is my experience.

As for activity, some of us who were fortunate had computers, console games (Atari :-)) and the 'ol arcade machines, but after school WE WENT OUTSIDE TO PLAY! Sports, games, building a go-cart and going downhill, whatever, but we were out side and were active. None of this Playstation or Xbox stuff.

The point is while we had sit-down diversions and junk food, we didn't indulge in them to the same extent as kids today. Doing stuff outside was more fun.

dcx

[Big_J]

because times have changed and technology has advanced and people move with teh technology.. sitting at ur computer all day can earn you a job paying good money .. i was watching a program on tv the other week and the lady on the show said the human bodies instincts is to eat food where ever they see it as how ever long ago it was so scarce tht whn found it was eatn.. so yea my thoughts is schools cannot help and its a lost cause unless parents and the children step in and take responsibility

[Spitterkat]

imo, dont try to educate people, their habits are in place, try to create some sort of societal pressure at a young age (things the children can do for themselves) which is physical in nature, this will lead to greater health to a degree, which they will carry into their adult years possibly, too much complacency / apathy these days, hence the problem grows

[Cammo]

In my opinion it's the parents who are the ones who have the job of making sure their kids are getting out and exercising & not eating too much crap food - why do we always have to blame the rest of society?

The PC brigade also has a lot to answer for on this one.

We must treat everybody equal and must not have negative opinions on people that are too lazy & lack the self discipline to take a bit of pride in themselves and look after their health & wellbeing.

When something goes wrong - we, the taxpayer have to fork out for surgeries & hospital stays.

It may sound a bit harsh but we have a right to be angry at lazy fat people.

I see large people in the gym but I admire them for getting in there & at least trying to get their health on the right track.

I find this letter quite amusing:

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=491379