Adolescent Health Issues
health & safety
The challenges of obesity
H
EALTHY EATING and physical activity are essential components for normal and healthy child and adolescent development. The most obvious consequence of poor nutrition and inadequate activity is obesity. Overweight and obesity that develop during childhood often continues into adulthood and results in increased risk for numerous chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Young people who are overweight also experience a number of social consequences, such as stigmatisation, discrimination and teasing. These social consequences can affect the lifelong achievements of young people, including educational achievement and employment. In 2007, a research team from the University of Auckland conducted a survey of more than 9,000 secondary school students from across New Zealand. The survey (Youth’07) not only asked students about their
health and wellbeing, including how they ate and the physical activities they did, but also included height and weight measurements of students. In addition students were asked about their home, school and neighbourhood, since information about these environments can help to further knowledge and understanding of young people. Results from Youth’07 provided accurate and up-to-date information about the eating and activity behaviours of secondary school students in New Zealand.
Diet and activity The results of the survey showed that more than one in three students was overweight or obese, while fewer than three per cent were underweight. Consequently half of all students had tried to lose weight in the past year. This is particularly concerning since maintaining weight loss is extremely difficult to achieve, and young people who diet face a number of poor outcomes later in
life such as mental health issues and increased body weight. Overweight and obesity was more common among students living in areas of high socio-economic deprivation (47 per cent) compared with those living in more affluent areas (26 per cent). Nearly 60 per cent of students reported that they always ate breakfast, and among those who ate breakfast nearly all (90 per cent) usually got their breakfast from home. Eating breakfast is thought to result in better nutritional and educational outcomes for students and breakfast sourced from home is much more likely to be healthy than the food young people buy from the dairy on the way to school. Students reported that they got the food they ate for lunch from multiple sources. Many students (87 per cent) brought some of their lunch from home, yet more than 60 per cent of students bought some of their lunch at school and 35 per cent bought some of their lunch from the shops or takeaways. Students living in more deprived areas were more likely to buy food for lunch than students in more affluent areas. More than half of all students felt that physical activity was definitely an important part of their lives. Yet, only 15 per cent of boys and six per cent of girls reported that they did enough physical activity to meet the current recommendations of at least one hour per day. Of interest is that there were no differences by socioeconomic background; young people in the most deprived areas were as likely to
be physically active as young people in the least deprived areas.
Making healthy choices Adolescent eating and activity behaviours are largely influenced by their social and physical environments. Young people, like adults, tend to make food choices based on what is available, affordable, and tastes good. Unfortunately, these foods tend to be unhealthy snack foods or takeaways. How young people spend their leisure time is also influenced by the social and physical environment. School is an important environment for young people as young people spend a lot of time there and school is often the source of peer and mentoring relationships. Schools can positively influence healthy eating and activity among their staff and students by creating an environment where healthy foods are accessible, affordable and appealing, and providing plenty of opportunities for physical activity. In Youth’07, more than 30 per cent of students felt their school encouraged them to be physically active and approximately 20 per cent felt their school encouraged them to eat healthy foods. Making meaningful improvements to the eating and activity behaviours of young people requires multiple interventions in a variety of settings. As the results show, schools have a great opportunity to contribute to this. Article by Jennifer Utter and Sue Grant, School of Population Health, University of Auckland
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school news Issue 09 - Term 1 - 2010
