Drive on to make Cayman kids healthier

(CNS): With around 30% of local children aged 3-6 years classified as overweight or obese and more than 34% of kids between 10-13 years suffering the same problem, officials areencouraging schools to develop health and wellness policies to address the issue before it’s too late. More than 50% of boys and more than 60% of girls in the Cayman Islands spend 3 hours or more a day in sedentary activities such as sitting around talking, watching TV or playing computer games and only 20% of boys and just over 10% of girls physically active for at least an hour per day, something government wants to change.

The Child Health Task Force (CHTF), a private-public partnership, launched an initiative on Tuesday to help schools develop policies relating to physical education, opportunities for physical activity during the school day, school meals and nutrition within the school. Although government schools have a standard School Food Policy and some private schools have implemented their own many schools do not have a broader policy which promotes holistic wellbeing. The task force is offering a financial incentive to schools that develop a written health/wellness policy by December 2012 and demonstrate its implementation by June next year.

Focusing on the threat of Chronic NCDs in children and adolescents which is a growing concern in the Cayman Islands the CHTF chair Dr. Diane Hislop said the goal was for every school to take up the challenge.

“We believe that the substantial portion of each day which children and teens spend at school make it a priority setting in which to either establish a health promotion initiative, or scale-up existing  initiatives that address common risk factors for NCDs, such as a lack of physical activity, childhood obesity and poor diets.”

The Children’s Health Task Force programme was launched in 2009 in an attempt to deal with the dramatic rise in the number of school children who are either obese, or at risk of becoming obese. It is a task force of medical professionals, educators and dieticians / nutritionists. Current membership includes Dr. Diane Hislop (Chair), Dr. Sook Yin (Co-Chair), Dr. Shirley Cridland (Medical Director), Sue Rajah (Program Coordinator), Kristen Lomas, Bethany Smith, Simone Sheehan and Cherine Usherwood (Registered Dieticians). The group works closely with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and the Public Health Department in the fight against childhood obesity.