COSPRO Child Obesity Newsletter November 2008

COSPRO
Child Obesity Support Programme

NEWSLETTER
November 2008

Phone (04) 9041487
Cell 027 3554553
Email cosproymail [dot] com
Web www.cospro.webs.com

What's On Top

- November has seen a further rise of interest in the COSPRO Child Obesity Support Programme from community and government agencies, and you can now find COSPRO listed in the following directories:

Ministry of Social Development > www.familyservices.govt.nz
Wellington City Council > www.wellington.govt.nz
NZ Health Connection > http://www.healthconnection.co.nz/
Sport Wellington > www.sportwellington.org.nz
NZAAHD > www.nzaahd.org.nz

If you know of any other community or government agencies (or individual families of course!) who might like to link up with COSPRO, invite them to get in touch. Also feel free to distribute this Newsletter to your own wider networks.

- A number of agencies and individual members of the public have assumed that COSPRO is a weight-loss programme for kids.

It isn't.

COSPRO is a support programme which aims to help kids with weight challenges develop self-confidence and become involved in physical activity, which may lead to weight loss. So what's the difference? Just this: Traditional weight-loss programmes target physical weight reduction as the primary goal. COSPRO takes a different approach in that it assists children with weight challenges to become more socially and physically confident by gradually involving them in community-based social and physical activities. This in turn may lead to them becoming more physically (and socially) active, which may ultimately lead to physical weight loss.

But physical weight-loss is not the be-all and end-all for a child in the COSPRO programme: A 100kg ten-year-old who starts the programme shy, withdrawn, and inactive, and who ends the programme confident, sociable, and adventurous - but still 100kg - would be considered a successful COSPRO graduate.

The major difference between COSPRO and other traditional weight-loss programmes is that COSPRO recognises that for most children, the biggest challenges around being obese are social, and it is therefore through social intervention that most children's real weight challenges can best be addressed.

- Having said that, if there are any REPs Registered Exercise Professionals, NZ Registered Dieticians, Public Health Nurses, or related NZ Registered Health Professionals out there who could spare a few hours a month on a regular basis to compliment the COSPRO programme by providing direct professional support and information around the physiological aspects of childhood obesity, I would love to hear from you!

NZAC Registered Counsellors, ANZASW Registered Social Workers, and related NZ Registered social health professionals are most welcome to apply for pro-bono involvement in COSPRO.

Applications from people in professional training for any of the above occupations may also be considered for supervised involvement in COSPRO. Experienced Community Support Workers and Youth Workers can also apply for volunteer support work. References will be provided to all successful volunteers who have served a term of at least 3 months and a minimum of 80 hours.

Topics Of Interest

- Summer's coming and families around the country are going to be hitting their local beaches, rivers, and council pools for a cool dip during the warmer months. It's practically a Kiwi ritual...

Water play is an incredibly effective way of engaging obese kids in physical activity. The bouyancy that H2O provides and the natural tendency of most children to enjoy the tactile sensation of water provide an ideal exercise environment for kids with weight challenges. They're excercising without even realising it!

But sometimes a dip in the pool for an overweight child can be the ultimate catch-22: An obese child may love to splash around around in the water as much as any other child, but will often be reluctant to do so because of what others might say or think of them with their shirt off - adults not exempt!

Think; the last time you were down at the council pools and saw a sigificantly overweight child, did you look twice? What went through your mind? What might that child have thought about the way you looked at him or her? Would that child want to go down to the pool again?

Would you?

- With Christmas fast approaching, many of us will be wondering how we might survive the traditional (over)indulgence of the festive season - and the inevitable weight gain!

For many parents of overweight kids this can be a significant concern, especially as Christmas falls around the beginning of the summer school holidays - a time when some overweight children may have less opportunity to be as physically active as they might during the school term.

Economic pressures and the frantic pace of contemporary society may make it difficult for many parents to find the time or financial resources to provide their child with sufficient physical activity on a daily basis during the holiday period.

Fifty years ago most kids would've probably found it themselves. But times have changed and modern parents are much more wary of letting their kids explore the world in the devil-may-care way that they seem hard-wired to do: We are constantly reminded of so many dangers now, from speeding cars to climbing trees, and we feel the need to protect our children at all costs.

http://www.michaelungar.ca

So perhaps we're justified to some extent in citing social change as a factor in the rising rates of child obesity and it's related causes and long-term health effects. But when you're down at the shopping mall and you see Mum or Dad feeding their kids at the local fast-food joint with sugar and fat-laden spreads twice the size of anything you could ever manage, how can you help but point the finger at anyone or anything but the parents themselves?

You could probably write a thesis trying to figure that one out, but some social researchers insist that many parents of obese kids are literally unable to recognise their child's obesity and the associated nutritional and physiological factors involved. Others insist that such parents are simply replicating the parenting methods fostered on them by their own parents - in which case feeding their kids like that is 'only normal', and therefore 'right'.

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE0506/S00032.htm

Whatever the case, some people in the wider community consider child obesity a result of poor parenting. It's a hard fact. Some even go so far as to say that child obesity should be considered a form of child abuse. Overseas, some government agencies have essentially acted on that premise and have threatened to remove morbidly obese kids from their parents by force of law.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6396457.stm

www.independent.co.uk/.../the-big-question-are-we-exaggerating-the-probl......

The view of COSPRO is that most parents ultimately want the best for their kids, but that occasionally a parents' view of what's best might be skewed by familial or external factors such as commercial, economic, and / or socio-cultural pressures and influences. COSPRO therefore takes the view that no parent should be held solely responsible for such health issues as obesity in their children. In an extension of that old truism ''no man is an island'', the COSPRO perspective is that ''no parent is an island'': There is always a wider view to consider, and there will always be other factors that need to be taken into account and addressed.

In The News

- Researchers at Otago University have undertaken studies which indicate that sleep deprivation in children and teens may lead to the development of obesity in adulthood. Lead author Erik Landhuis says: "It is not clear why lack of sleep might lead to weight gain, but experimental studies have shown that sleep deprivation may disrupt the hormones that regulate appetite. It has also been suggested that tired kids may simply have less energy and are therefore less active."

www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/2008/03-11-08_press_release.html

As a non-scientist it seems to make sense to me: If a child is tired, he or she won't feel like engaging in physical activity, and physically inactive kids tend to put on weight (I'll leave the 'hormone' stuff to those in the know!). I do know that my own 8 year old daughter would stay up 'till midnight if I let her, and all she would want to do the next day is sleep - or watch TV - and eat.

So again we are confronted with the conundrum of parental responsibility. Parents should ensure their kids get a good night's sleep - right? But again we need to consider the wider picture: In the past kids had little to do but go to bed when the sun went down: Now they have a world of opportunities for nocturnal entertainment at their fingertips: Playstation, Cartoon Channel, The Internet, Cellphones... How can a parent compete with that?!

- Is obesity a headache for overweight kids? It would seem so from recent research which indicates that children with weight challenges may experience a greater frequency and magnitude of headaches than their average-weight peers.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121402792/abstract?CRETRY=1&S...

These findings are relatively new, and there is not a lot of scientific data available yet to back them up or to explain them. But we all know that headaches are a pain, and it might be worthwhile - especially for teachers and educators - to consider this when evaluating any percieved cognitive deficits in an overweight child.

Your Say

I recently had a parent call me because she was concerned that her "daughter's tummy is getting a bit too big''. I asked the lady if she believed her daughter was experiencing any social challenges because of this, and she replied; 'No'.

There seems to be something of a positive paradox to the rising incidence of child obesity in that overweight and obese kids are now no longer outsiders. When I was at school an obese child was one of a kind: Different. There was perhaps one ''fat kid'' at any given school, and as such he or she would usually be ostracised and ridiculed. Nowdays, because of the prevelance and frequency of child obesity, there are quite likely to be at least a couple of obese kids in a single classroom. They're no longer unique, and are therefore accepted to a greater degree as part of the regular social / school environment.

In this respect, the increasing prevelance of child obesity may be a bonus for the individual overweight child in that he or she is no longer an anomaly, but rather one of a rising clique: It's a case of strength in numbers.

Of course, this doesn't ameliorate the physiological impact of child obesity, and many obese kids still experience huge social challenges because of their condition. Also, it could be argued that with the increased awareness of obesity and its impact on society as a whole, overweight and obese kids may be viewed by some adults (especially) as a potential burden on their own future wellbeing and that of their families.

Email your comments, ideas, thoughts, opinions, and questions to cosproymail [dot] com for publication in this newsletter.

You can also include any child obesity related news, topics of interest, or events that you or your agency may be involved with.

Contact COSPRO

Phone (04) 9041487
Cell 027 3554553
Email cosproymail [dot] com
Web www.cospro.webs.com

Regards,
Chris Lakomy,
COSPRO