Study urges attack on childhood obesity
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| Photo Courtesy ANA JUNE |
| During the past decade, children have replaced outdoor fun with more sedentary indoor activities. |
By Lee James / The Free Press
Dr. Suzanne Gebhart told the Santa Fe City Council recently that the city faces an epidemic and must address it. “We have an epidemic of childhood obesity,” Gebhart told the council, pointing out that since the 1980s there has been a 300 percent increase in childhood obesity.
She said two schools — Salazar and Agua Fria elementaries — studied during the six months of work of the Healthy Lifestyles Task Force indicated “35 percent of the students fit into the obesity group.”
“This is pretty staggering,” she said. She said statewide 24 percent of children aged 2-5 in New Mexico are overweight or obese and 25 percent of high school students are overweight or obese.
Obesity, she said, “carries heavy baggage of disease factors,” including diabetes, and quality of life is threatened by the prospects of heart disease, hypertension and strokes.
The task force was created by City Councilor Matthew Ortiz. The group was assigned to meet for six months, with the purpose of investigating and recommending to the governing body steps toward achieving healthy lifestyles for children and adolescents.
The task force came up with a number of solutions to promote health heating behaviors and developing lifelong fitness goals.
The task force revealed 12 recommendations to the city could implement immediately:- Increase support for current effective community and public school programs.
- Set an example of healthy lifestyles.
- Support the regular and periodic monitoring of the health of every student.
- Initiate a public education campaign.
- Establish monthly community walks.
- Provide and distribute family-friendly maps of city and county green spaces, parks and trails.
- Encourage biking and walking to school and making sure it is safe to do so.
- Encourage local farmers to work with schools, families and young people.
- Support gardens and orchards at schools, community centers and in neighborhoods.
- Encourage public school, senior center and community center use on nights and weekends.
- Suggest that the Santa Fe Public School Board consider incorporating 10 to 20 minutes of daily movement in elementary and middle school classrooms and offer a Wellness Across the Curriculum professional development day for teachers.
- Support the existing Southside Farmers Market.
- The city should make an effort to connect existing bicycle paths and trails.
- Establish over and underpasses to facilitate a walking lifestyle.
- Change the city’s laws to facilitate enforcement of drivers yielding to pedestrians.
- Develop infrastructure to promote a physically active city of walking and biking.
- Ask the public school system to develop after-school activities and to provide buses for those activities.
- Ask schools to extend the school day in the alternative to provide physical activity.
“My hope is that some of these recommendations will be taken to the school board,” Ortiz said, adding that the city should “start pushing the envelope” to promote healthier lifestyles.
Councilor Miguel Chavez also suggested approaching the New Mexico Legislature to change its funding formulas so schools can include a physical education curriculum.
He pointed out that the system right now forces parent-teacher organizations to raise funds to support the arts and physical education.
One suggestion was that the city initiate a public education program to emphasize daily habits that include one hour of exercise, no more than two hours of TV or video-watching and eating five servings of vegetables and fruits. This has been successful in other communities around the country.
It was stressed that reversing childhood obesity is an effort that should include all phases of society — families, schools, neighborhoods and workplaces.
Ortiz challenged city employees to reduce their body mass index readings. Mayor David Coss, who had just returned from the U.S. Mayor’s Conference, said childhood obesity is being addressed by cities everywhere.
For copies of the task force’s executive summary or report, contact the City Children and Youth Commission Office (505) 955-6613.
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