The article of concern

Sometimes, when you are in a environment for a long period of time, you become oblivious to trends that develop in the world around you. This has been the case for me. It's been ten years since I have worked in schools and needless to say, the world in the school environment has changed since I was last there. So why am I taking notice now? Well I have a young niece who is almost at the age where she can start developing key motor skills for life, and I was interested in what kind of world she is about to be exposed to. In particular, I found this article on Friday:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features20Sep+2009

Here is a summery of some key points

Obesity is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability. Around the world, levels of childhood obesity have been rising for a number of reasons including the fact that children are eating more foods that are high in fat and sugars and spending less time on physical activity.

Overweight and obesity in children is a major health concern. Studies have shown that once children become obese they are more likely to stay obese into adulthood and have an increased risk of developing both short and long-term health conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Obesity not only has significant health and social impacts, but also considerable economic impacts. In 2008, the total annual cost of obesity for both children and adults in Australia, including health system costs, productivity and carers costs, was estimated to be around $58 billion.

In 2007–08, one-quarter of all Australian children, or around 600,000 children aged 5–17 years, were overweight or obese, up four percentage points from 1995 (21%).

The obesity rate for children increased from 5% in 1995 to 8% in 2007–08 with the proportion overweight remaining around 17% over this time period. This shows a shift towards the higher and heavier end of the body mass index.

The rates were much higher for adults, with 61% of Australian adults overweight or obese in 2007–08.

The goal of commencing this blog is to try and create conversation from the greater sporting community of ways/ideas/concepts/advice that could be applied to assist in reining in what is a truly national problem.

So to get the ball rolling, please post your feedback and thoughts of the article above and pass this blog address on to friends, families and colleagues that would be willing to contribute or could benefit from reading posts on this site.