Childhood Obesity - Why children are growing in all the wrong ways

Broadcast: 01/09/2006

Reporter: Elvira Nuic

REBECCA CARMODY (PRESENTER): On Sunday experts from around the world will gather in Sydney to discuss the worsening obesity epidemic. High on the agenda will be children, the first generation who, experts fear, won't live as long as their parents. In W-A the government is under pressure to fund more programs for young people battling the condition. Elvira Nuic reports.

DR BILLIE-GILES CORTI (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA): Every year it's going up and up and up. It's like this tide coming through that's just not relenting so it's really serious. it's a global epidemic.

DR LIZ DAVIS (PRINCESS MARGARET HOSPITAL): There's not a pill or a magic treatment for it so it takes a lot of hard work.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Four months ago the future for these children was bleak. Overweight or obese, their likelihood of developing killer diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease was high. That's before they were taken under the wing of exercise physiologist Mike McGuigan and his team.

DR MIKE MCGUIGAN (EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY): Doing exercises that are resistance based so using things like weighted bags and dumbells, their own body weight as resistance. Quite different to the more traditional aerobic based programs which involve a lot of running based activities which a lot of children don't enjoy and perhaps aren't suited too in terms of their body shape.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Exercise physiologists are at the coalface in the obesity battle. At Edith Cowan University, graduates are working with 150 overweight and obese children to see how resistance training can transform their bodies, general health and minds.

DR MIKE MCGUIGAN (EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY): We've seen some quite significant improvements in terms of the changes in body fat percentage, we've seen some significant decreases. We've also seen that children have maintained and increased their muscle mass, we've seen that they've improved their bone health.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The idea that exercise can fight obesity isn't rocket science. Yet for children too heavy for team sport this is one of the only programs of its type in WA, a state where almost one in every three children is obese or overweight.

NATALIE KING (PARENT): I think it's helped with his confidence, fitness level and heaps of people said to me, Ashley's looking great and a lot of people have come up to me and asked me if they could get into the program but they were full up anyway so unfortunately they couldn't get in.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Despite huge demand for programs like this, in eight weeks the trial will be over and the kids gym will close, leaving these parents with few options.

DR MIKE MCGUIGAN (EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY): It's something that really needs to be rolled out a lot more and a lot more extensively across the state i think if we're going to see the benefits.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): This year the state government will spend about three million dollars tackling obesity. Most will go towards education campaigns promoting healthier eating and exercise. Researchers say it's not nearly enough.

DR BILLIE-GILES CORTI (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA): We've estimated that we need to really be spending 10 dollars a head and that's a lot less than we're currently spending on the problem. and that's not just for children, but for adults as well.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Billie Giles Corti is a UWA researcher and member of the government's Physical Activity Taskforce. She says without an urgent and significant funding boost, the health system will struggle.

DR BILLIE-GILES CORTI (UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA): We'd really like to see bigger commitments from state and federal government to be able to address the problem and I think if we don't do it we've got some dire consequences into the future.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Dr Liz Davis treats the most severe child obesity cases at Princess Margaret Hospital.

DR LIZ DAVIS (PRINCESS MARGARET HOSPITAL): We've certainly seen kids in our department who've had diabetes from obesity in early age, there's a number of kids the sleep department see who need treatment for sleep apnea, kids with hypertension, we've seen kids with nearly all the complication of obesity that are written about we've seen here over the last year or two.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The Hospital is also involved in extensive research which will be presented to next week's international obesity conference in Sydney. It includes determining pre-cursers to obesity through studying healthy and overweight children. She says what's clear is that fixing the problem won't be cheap.

DR LIZ DAVIS (PRINCESS MARGARET HOSPITAL): Most of the studies around the world that have been shown to make a difference are also very resource intensive but there's no doubt that the complications and the health impacts of obesity are going to be very expensive as well.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The problem then becomes what's the best way to spend the limited funding available? A new report published in the Medical Journal of Australia says education policies, like those in WA, have failed to control the country's rapidly expanding waistlines. The authors have called for fast food to be taxed, fruit and veg subsidised and for a complete junk food ban in schools.

STUDENT 1: I usually get pizzas, pies and mostly noodles.

STUDENT 2: On a Wednesday i'll get a pizza.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): The canteen at the South Ballajura Primary School is leading the way in the healthy food stakes.

STUDENT 3: I like bananas, apples and fruit, all fruit and for lunch i like spaghetti and lasagne.

LEE HAYS (CANTEEN MANAGER): I think we've taken a more balanced approach. Included more salads and fruits. We also try to include pastas.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Even so, the menu here still includes ice cream, sausage rolls, pies and flavoured milk, items many experts want banned altogether. The state government will reveal its position on the issue soon after this week receiving a draft report recommending healthy canteen changes. At least one canteen manager says a junk food ban wouldn't be so bad.

LEE HAYS (CANTEEN MANAGER): I don't think they'd be too worried. You give the another alternatives and they'll take it on. It might take a little while but they'll get use to it and they seem to prefer the fresher. We've gone from a school that sold hardly any fruit to, I can't keep up with it.

ELVIRA NUIC (REPORTER): Whether banning junk food in schools is the answer or not, there's general agreement that more must be done to stop this generation eating itself to death.