COSPRO May Newsletter

Great news! COSPRO Child Obesity Support Programme has been approved for Registration by the NZ Charities Commission.

COSPRO is now a NZ Registered Charity!

www.charities.govt.nz

This is great news because it means that the NZ Government has recognised COSPRO as a legitimate (and legal!) non-profit Community Service. This will be of great benefit in promoting and developing the COSPRO Programme, and will bring COSPRO greater credibility within other relevant community and professional services. Most importantly, parents and caregivers of children with weight challenges who are considering becoming part of the COSPRO Programme will be reassured by this significant endorsement.

The COSPRO Charities Commission Reference is: CC40211

- In other news (as they say!) COSPRO has started a Discussion Forum for people concerned about child obesity (parents, relatives, health professionals, teachers, etc.) on The Forum Site. You can post anything you like around the issue of child obesity or the COSPRO Programme on this site by clicking on the link below, but please be aware that anything you post here will be visible to anyone who visits the site.

http://www.theforumsite.com/forum/topic/COSPRO-Child-Obesity-Support-Pro...

There is a link to the Forum from the COSPRO website (www.cospro.webs.com): Just click on ''Forums'' at the top of the page and you will be automatically directed to the Forum. You also need to be aware that anyone can post anything they like in this Forum (more or less), and you may find some comments written here by people who seem to insist on the ''blame game'' when it comes to child obesity.

That's their right, and in a roundabout way it can be a good thing that they express these views in a public forum because it gives others the opportunity to prove them wrong. For example, one recent Forum posters' idea of a ''cure'' for child obesity was to simply ''tell (obese kids) to get off the couch''. Right there was an opportunity to remind / inform this person that there are numerous factors which may lead to child obesity - social, physical, genetic, environmental - and that seldom if ever would an obese child actually choose to be obese just for the sake of not ''getting off the couch''!

So, while you may find some of the posts in the Forum rather negative or even objectionable, you yourself can take a pro-active view and see those posts as an opportunity to promote the interests of children with weight challenges and use your own personal experiences to refute them.

Topics Of Interest

- I recently came across a WebMD article which aims to address some causes of child obesity, and how parents and caregivers may help their obese kids around these issues. This article has some good, common-sense information around physical activity, eating patterns, and of course, genetic suceptibility. Significantly, it also mentions that some cases of child obesity are caused by medical conditions such as ''a hormonal problem''.

http://children.webmd.com/obesity-children

''Hormonal problems'' may sound somewhat vague and ambiguous, but it's certainly true that there are some kids who develop obesity because of underlying medical conditions. In these cases it's always vitally important that such issues are addressed as soon as possible. Never mind your child's weight for the moment - if there's something more serious going on you need to get that sorted first!

Also, there's a little note at the end of this article which I thought was really powerful and significant:

''It is not recommended that parents set children apart because of their weight. Instead, parents should focus on gradually changing their family's physical activity and eating habits. By involving the entire family, everyone is taught healthful habits and the overweight child does not feel singled out.''

©2005-2009 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

In The News

l A news article on stuff.co.nz suggests that providing overweight kids with increased physical activity at school is of little benefit, because such kids inevitably ''wilt'' when they get home, and become ''less active when the final bell rings''.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/2399545/School-activities-do...

This article is interesting because it addresses evolutionary factors around energy (fat) conservation, developing healthy lifestyle habits, and environmental and socio-economic factors all at once.

All too often news articles addressing child obesity tend to focus only on single factors around this issue and fail to look at the bigger picture. This is analogous with some of the sentiments expressed by certain people who feel they're an authority on child obesity - when they believe they have all the answers before having considered all the questions.

- Young people tend to be adventurous creatures, and that's all good. Without young people we oldies would never have discovered the Internet, and you probably wouldn't be reading this Newsletter right now! That would be terrible!

But sometimes their adventurism can be a double-edged sword: The young may have the energy, ability, and freshness of insight to promote and advance the best interests of the society in which they live, but these things can prove detrimental when negative or harmful social influences take hold. Think; drugs, boy racing, the gang culture... and diets.

Young people have a tendency to become passionate about their ideals, and if their ideals revolve around ''losing weight'', the results can sometimes be disastrous.

Here's a news article about one young(ish) 23 year old who became so obsessed with losing weight after the birth of her son that she consumed nothing but Red Bull energy drinks for a period of eight months. (Did I read that right?).

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5590709/womans-extreme-red-bull...

Not surprisingly, the young womans' health suffered as a consequence, and I hate to think about the effect it might have had on her new son.

I think we should never try to stifle the ideals and dreams of our young, but we should be bound by our wisdom to prevent them from harming themselves if their dreams and ideals ever go astray.

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.