The CSIRO's ten ways to improve your child's health
Posted by kathryn in Health News and Kid's nutrition
With much fanfare the government has announced the CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for Australian Children. It’s a ten point plan, covering healthy eating and lifestyle advice. The plan is aimed at helping parents to ensure their children are eating well and developing health habits.
Under the programme fridge magnets are being distributed to primary school children and the CSIRO’s website has been ramped up with lots more information and resources. According to the CSIRO:
The CSIRO Wellbeing Plan for Children will provide easy-to-access, practical, evidence-based advice for parents to promote healthy eating and physical activity in children.
The ten point plan
The plan includes both healthy eating and healthy lifestyle advice:
- Give thirsty kids water
- Help young bones grow strong
- Vegies add vitality
- Grains are great
- Think healthy snacks
- Start with breakfast
- Recreational screen time
- Help kids be active
- Be a healthy role model
- Shop smartly
And the CSIRO has a whole lot of information about each of these on their website.
What do I think?
There are many positives to this initiative. It’s a basic, practical plan, that’s appropriate for all children – and most adults. By emphasising healthy habits, as well as diet, it gives parents a clear picture of the fundamentals of improving their child’s health. Plus it includes the importance of parents acting as role models for healthy lifestyle behaviours.
The website contains a lot of information and gets down to the nitty-gritty of how much and how often. It also includes tips on what to do if your kids are reluctant to eat vegies or drink water and so on.
It’s a positive message and a good initiative. Overweight and obesity is a problem in Australian society and this gives parents some clear guidelines to follow. However, there’s still no movement from the Federal government on the advertising of junk foods to children. While parents are getting some good advice, there’s still no help in reducing pester power.
Further information
- The CSIRO website
- CSIRO’s media release
- SMH report on the government announcement
- Transcript of speech by John Howard
- The original announcement on . . . yes, you guessed it Youtube
- Technorati tag: csiro wellbeing plan for kids.
25 September, 2007
Comments
I found their so called fact sheet on ‘helping young bones grow strong’ to be utter propaganda, so much so I suspect they have some direct funding from the dairy foods industry. The gist of it is that dairy is the best thing for strong bones and you should only not eat dairy if a doctor has diagnosed your child with a dairy allergy. However, highly respected studies and metaanalysis would suggest otherwise. Cochrane Collaboration for example found that calcium did not give children stronger bones (to prevent fractures) and the Harvard Womens health study found the same to be true in women as well.
I believe there are a lot of good things in these ‘fact sheets’, but I also believe that they could be better.
You know which part I loved? Well, there were a few, admittedly, but I loved the part when it says to give low-fat milk to children. What about full-cream milk? What’s so bad about that? Shouldn’t children be active enough to drink full-cream milk?
And half a cup of fruit juice a day? Firstly, it doesn’t clearly differentiate between the mass manufactured variety OR the freshly squeezed juices. Half a cup of juice a day? Man, when I was a kid, I was sucking back more than half a cup of fresh juice a day. Fuelled my swimming lessons, football and soccer training and games, and my general mucking about (think tip, bullrush etc…).
Another thing I enjoyed was the recpie to cook Fruit Muffins! Mmm, mmm – sounds delicious and it makes a whole 24 muffins! So, how many kilojules is in each muffin? The earlier part of the fact sheet states that you should feed kids snacks which “are less than or around 600 kilojoules per serve”. The average parent mixing ½ cup canola oil, ½ cup honey, 1 cup grated carrot, 2 bananas(mashed), 2 apples (unpeeled and grated), 3 egg, lightly beaten, 2 cups reduced-fat milk, 1 ½ cups unprocessed wheat bran, 1 ½ cups oat bran, 2 cups plain wholemeal flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and ½ cup raisins surely isn’t going to know how many to feed their kids in the afternoon after school. “Mum, I’m still hungry!” “Have another muffin, they’re healthy and low in kilojules…”
I think the anti-dairy camp is just as suspicious as the pro-dairy camp. Both have their agendas as well as various ‘studies’ proving or disproving whatever point they want to make.
I don’t think dairy is inherently evil nor do I think it is manna from heaven. As long as we have a balanced, moderate approach to all the food we eat, I think we will be fine. I don’t think there is any need to over-complicate things or scare ourselves unnecessarily.
The CSIRO plan isn’t perfect, but no nutritional plan aimed at the general population is. Public health is such a difficult balancing act.
But I think you have to remember the basic dietary level these schemes are aimed at. For most people, small amounts of dairy are fine. For many people getting their kids to eat carrots, fruit and enough fibre is a struggle. If they can replace chips and biscuits with a home-made muffin – then it may not be perfect, but it is an improvement.
One of the primary struggles is to get people eating whole, real foods. Rather than all the fast, processed, junk.
And I think discussing these issues, is also important. I’m always encouraged by the good, thoughtful comments I get on Limes & Lycopene. Reminds me there are people out there who care about these issues!
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