Childhood Obesity (13) - Implement successful programs

The Ministry of Education should research and study programs that have been tried and became successful in other places. For example, the “TAKE 10!” program (Peregrin, 2001), launched in 2001, has been implemented by at least 16 states and 238 schools with amazing successful results. One successful example is that the city of Philadelphia, once labeled as “America’s fattest city”, after implementing the “TAKE 10!” program, has become one of the healthiest cities in the U.S.

Reference
Peregrin, T. (2001). TAKE 10! Classroom-Based Program Fights Obesity by Getting Kids Out of Their Seats. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 101(12):1409-1411, 2001.

Childhood Obesity (12) - Health Education and Physical Education

Teaching healthy eating habits should itself be a subject in the Elementary Curriculum, independent of the current “Health and Physical Education” subject.

This is the joint responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Health Canada for both developing the contents of the subject as well as administering the subject. This will give the “Health” aspect and the “Physical Education” aspect more emphasis in terms of more allotted time for educating our children its importance to healthy living.

Childhood Obesity (11) - Update the curricula

The current curriculum was written in 1998. It’s time to update the curriculum so that it can reflect more closely to the current thoughts on and approaches of combating the prevalence of childhood obesity.

One obvious aspect in the curriculum to be updated is: The current stipulation by the Ministry of Education in the Elementary Curriculum that a minimum of 20 minutes each day is far from the recommended time of at least 60 minutes each day by the World Health Organization. This is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, which should also place a closer monitoring on the implementation details, such as “each day” really is “each day”, not “each day on the average.”

The Ministry of Education should also update the curriculum for high school to make the subjects of “Physical Education” and “Healthy Living” mandatory throughout all grades in high school. The current curriculum allows students to drop out of “Health and Physical Education” starting grade 10. It is unacceptable because we need to convey the message to our children that physically active and eating healthy are life-long commitments.

Childhood Obesity (6) - The Ontario curricula

The website of the Ontario Ministry of Education lists Health and Physical Education as one of its curricular subjects in both elementary and secondary curricula (Ministry of Education, 2008). It has been noted that the elementary curriculum was dated in 1998 whereas the secondary curriculum was dated in 1999.

Both the Elementary Curriculum and the Secondary Curriculum state that the goals of the subject of health and physical education are to help students develop
· an understanding of the importance of physical fitness, health, and well-being and the factors that contribute to them;
· a personal commitment to daily vigorous physical activity and positive healthy behaviours;
· the basic movement skills they require to participate in physical activities throughout their lives. (Ministry of Education, 1998, p.2; 1999, p.2).

The Elementary Curriculum of Health and Physical Education consists of three strands: physical activity, active living, and healthy living. And the Secondary Curriculum adds an additional strand: living skills.

However, the subject of Physical Education is only mandatory for grade 9 students, but is optional for students of grade 10 to 12. This is not enough, and this may send the wrong message to students that after grade 9, physical activity is an optional thing in life. We certainly do not want our students to get that impression. We need to convey the message that a physically active healthy living is a life-time commitment.

Reference
Ministry of Education (1998). The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Health and Physical Education. Toronto: Queen’s Printer for Ontario.
Ministry of Education (1999). The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9 and 10: Health and Physical Education. Toronto: Queen’s Printer for Ontario.