COSPRO Child Obesity Newsletter October 2009

What's On Top

- Child obesity sometimes seems to be an almost 'seasonal' issue with regards to media coverage and general public concern: It's in the newspapers every second day for a few months, then there's nothing at all... And then it's back again. I guess there are many public health issues which experience this same sort of seesawing effect - for example breast cancer awareness. We've just had Breast Cancer Awareness week and right now nearly everyone is attuned to the seriousness of this issue, but ask those same people about the problem in 6 months' time and many of them will probably give you little more than a blank stare.

Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad, but the point I'm trying to make is that people in general tend to take what they perceive as major health or community issues from what's being broadcast, printed, or televised in the mass media at any given time. If the media focus is on child obesity, so people in general will be. If it's focussed on breast cancer, so people in general will be.

Of course, any individual or family member directly concerned with such health challenges will be focussed on the issue all the time (more or less), and the media might do well to recognise its own inherent power and influence over general recognition of such public health challenges as ongoing and significant concerns - and to act accordingly - for moral and social responsibility, if not to actually influence the course and progression of such public health challenges on a regional, national, or even global scale.

Topics Of Interest

- How many times have you walked past a bookstore or magazine rack and seen title after title, magazine after magazine promoting this-or-that diet or weight loss programme, and / or screaming that (insert celebrity here) has gained 20 kilos after their breakup / breakdown / pregnancy / marriage / divorce, etc.

I was down at the mall last night. This was my shopping list:

* Carton of milk
* Tea bags
* 100 watt lightbulb
* Lotto ticket
* 2 tins of pink salmon

While I was buying these things at the mall supermarket I made a mental note as to how many times - as a simple customer walking through the store - I was implicitly or explicitly subjected to the idea that 'fat is bad'; that the ideal body image is one of slimness; and that one should buy products which ultimately promote these ideas. Remember, this was a supermarket, not a health food store or a fitness centre!

Basically, the 'anti-fat' message was evident in virtually every aisle I walked down - in one way or another.

There was low-fat and no-fat milk, yoghurt, and meat in the cold stores. There were tins of 'lite' fruit salad, calorie-free sweeteners, and 'low-fat' tuna on the shelves. 'Diet' soft drinks and sugar-free candies lined the confectionary aisle. '99% fat-free' ham, cheese, and smallgoods featured in the deli, and the magazine rack displayed a virtual armada of both women's' and men's' magazines promoting the latest fat-burning, calorie-crunching, tummy-taming diet or exercise routine.

I'm not trying to say this is all bad. Of course, the concept of healthy eating / healthy action is an admirable thing - especially in this day and age of convenient food and convenient lifestyles - all of which may be contributing to the increase in frequency and occurrence of obesity in those nations which have embraced it. What I am concerned about, though, is the subtle message underlying all this 'anti-fat' marketing, which is essentially saying 'fat is bad', and, more to the point; 'if you're fat, there's something wrong with you'.

Okay. If you're clinically obese then there is - clinically - 'something wrong with you'. But at the same time we don't have aisles of consumer goods in our supermarkets which purport to ameliorate the effects of other clinically significant conditions such as asthma, influenza, or bipolar disorder! Why? Because marketing such things wouldn't appeal to the general public as do things which hold some hope (however fanciful) of ameliorating the condition of overweight or obesity.

And why is that?

Is it simply because overweight / obesity is considered to be a condition which you can 'do something about' by buying the aforementioned products... Does that mean 'obesity' has been hijacked by commercial interests as a marketable concept? I don't know, but what I do know is that overweight and obese kids walking down these aisles with their parents or caregivers while doing the weekly grocery shop will pick up on all of this - or at least some of it. As a parent of an obese child yourself, you might not think twice about walking past the 'low calorie cola' display, but chances are that your child will, and chances are that he or she will incorporate the subtle message given out by the display into his or her own personal concept / body image of him or herself.

So what can you do about it?

1. Put on a balaclava, march into your local supermarket, and tear down all the no-fat, low-fat product displays, not to mention all those anti-obesity women's' magazines,

OR

2. Support your overweight / obese child to realise that overweight / obesity is something you can manage by being careful about the things you eat and making sure you get enough exercise.

Okay, call me devils' advocate, but maybe - just maybe - it's not such a bad thing that supermarkets are leaning towards healthy food choices for you and your family... I only wish they would raise all those slimness-obsessed mags above our average kids' eye level... obese or not.

- Have you seen the new animated Cartoon Network series 'Chowder'?

If you have a child aged between about 5 and 12 and access to Cartoon Network on your TV, chances are you've watched this show - or watched your child watch it. For those who aren't familiar with Chowder, it's a cartoon series about a very tubby male child named Chowder who is of indeterminate species (although my daughter insists he's a mixture of cat, bear, and rabbit). Chowder is an apprentice chef in a highly disorganised kitchen run by the highly eccentric head chef, Mung Daal.

Anyway, the point is that Chowder takes great delight in 'sampling' anything and everything that is produced in the kitchen, to the point where he frequently becomes so large and / or unwell that the whole subsequent episode may be based on the resulting 'disaster'.

As an animated character, Chowder is a very likeable little guy, always happy and positive, and always willing to make the best of a bad situation. Trouble is, some (real) people have expressed concern that Chowder's animated eating habits may be subtly promoting, or at least normalising, stereotypical eating habits which may lead to child obesity.

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/life-arts/chowder-debuts-on-tv-1.953169

The above reference doesn't elaborate on this in any great detail, but I guess I can see where they're coming from:

1. Chowder is a likeable animated character, probably aged about 10 to 12.

2. Chowder eats a LOT, and is obese as a result.

3. A child watching this animation may subsequently assume that unhealthy eating (and subsequent obesity) could result in likeable personality traits.

Or is that silly? Do kids really take their social / physiological cues from what they see on TV to such an extent? I suppose it depends on the child in question, and on how much influence they have from other quarters throughout their development. For example, a child who is allowed to watch TV on a frequent basis, every day, probably will take at least a few cues from what they see - even if it is animated.

But that's a whole separate issue.

http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_watching_tv

All in all, I like watching Chowder with my daughter, aged 9. I really don't think she's picked up any of Chowder's eating habits... If anything, I think the thought of eating like Chowder has made her more careful about what she eats than making her want to eat more!

In The News

A while back, shortly after the National Party was voted in as Government, there was considerable controversy around the decision to remove the restrictions placed on schools around selling 'unhealthy' foods in their tuckshops. A rationale was that tuckshop funds provided a significant source of funding for schools, and that restrictions on the type of foodstuffs sold in tuckshops would greatly limit the funding available for wider school projects and activities.

Also, it was suggested that parents, not schools, should be primarily responsible for their children's eating habits, and that otherwise 'unhealthy' foods (pies, chippies, etc.) should be offered by school tuckshops as occasional treat foods.

Nonetheless, many schools in the US have independently decided to significantly reduce their tuckshop supplies of such products, and to increase stocks of products deemed more conductive to the development of a healthy lifestyle / healthy weight.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/entertainment/6149417/more-us-schools-shun-...

It might take some before any results of this developing initiative become clearly visible, but, at the same time, individual schools here in NZ might do well to take note of what's happening in schools in the US.

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) 904148
Cell 027 3554553
Email cosproymail [dot] com
Website www.cospro.webs.com

Regards,
Chris Lakomy,
COSPRO