Students at Glashan Intermediate School get active during a daily phys-ed session.
The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) has expanded beyond the doors of its central location on Smyth Road, opening the Healthy Active Living Centre to combat the expanding waistlines of Canada’s youth.
Although the clinic’s doors officially opened at the beginning of February, CHEO’s public relations coordinator Marie Belanger says funding sought from the provincial government was received in 2009.
“When we realized this was a growing problem . . . we knew we needed a program to facilitate it,” she says.
According to statistics from the Childhood Obesity Foundation, 26 per cent of Canadian children aged two to 17 years old are either overweight or obese.
The centre offers two programs, headed by a group of on-site specialists including a pediatric endocrinologist, an advanced practice nurse, a psychologist, a social worker, an exercise specialist and a dietician.
One of the programs is specifically for children struggling with obesity and the other is for children who have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes due to weight problems. Both programs, however, are similar since they are so heavily reliant on family support, says Belanger.
“(The centre) takes a family-centered approach. There are a lot of lifestyle changes to be made,” she says. “A whole gamut of changes that extend beyond just the child.”
For a child to qualify for the program, Belanger says the clinic requires a referral from a physician. The child would need an alarmingly high body mass index (BMI) and could suffer from hypertension and breathing disorders.
While the clinic provides assistance for extreme cases of obesity, the provincial government has started to play a more active role in combating this issue.
Elementary and intermediate level schools have been targeted, recently putting a restriction on “junk food” sales and mandating a minimum amount of supervised physical education each day.
Glashan Intermediate School, located on Arlington Avenue, has embraced the government’s policies to keep kids fit under the Healthy Schools Recognition Program, which encourages schools to incorporate a health-conscious lifestyle with students. The school provides students with a free daily breakfast, consisting of eggs, orange juice, milk, and sometimes pancakes, says Mike, a student at the school, who didn't want his last name used.
In between mouthfuls of his hotdog, purchased from a fast-food vendor near his school, Mike says they have 45 minutes of phys-ed class four days a week. The phys-ed instructors allocate time for physical exercise, like suicide sprints in the gym, in addition to in-class work which includes information about the Canada Food Guide.
In October 2010, the Ministry of Education released the school food and beverage policy.
As of September 2011, schools will no longer be permitted to sell food with little or no nutritional value. This means that fried foods, soft drinks, candy and chocolate are all off the menu.
Glashan is already on board. “The vending machines don’t sell pop, only juice and milk,” says Mike. Aside from weekly pizza days, he says the school is very health conscious. The new policy will limit the sale of junk food to ten “special event days” per year, according to the Ministry of Education.
Murat Erlik, one of the phys-ed teachers at Glashan, says that while nutritional foods and education can be emphasised within school boundaries, “kids will inevitably be kids” and eat what they want when off school time.
“We’re a downtown school,” he says. “The kids have really easy access to both healthy and unhealthy foods beyond school property. The prime minister’s son went to our school last year and hit up the chip wagon every day.”
The government can do what they will to promote healthy eating habits, says Erlik, but the problem extends beyond only what is put on their plates.
Exercise is also a critical component to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but Erlik says that an obsession with safety not only restricts educators from promoting physical activity, but also hinders youth from expressing themselves physically.
“We’re so bogged down by this idea of safety,” he says. “If you look at playgrounds in terms of a historical perspective, there’s less opportunity for kids to express themselves physically.”
While reaction to increasing childhood obesity rates has been rapid, Erlik says it hasn’t been enough to conquer the problem.
“There are improvements that could be made, in terms of the school and nutrition,” says Erlik. “Can we do more education? Of course. Can we emphasise it a little more? Of course we can, and should.”