|
News:
RedBranch
Promoting Play
   
Access our Range
of Parent Resources
More News
Human and Economic
Cost of Heart Disease in Europe
Rising
Obesity Levels: A Cancer Time Bomb
Sign up to the
RedBranch email newsletter for regular
updates on health issues, including practical tips for parents, teachers and
schools.
| |
Children, Young People & Health
Healthy lifestyle is a major issue
for Irish children. Many Irish children have poor eating
habits and are not physically active, and this has a huge impact on
life-long health. Cardiovascular disease, the most common cause of death, is
directly related to lifestyle and begins in childhood. Eighty-six percent of
all deaths in Ireland result from lifestyle-related chronic illnesses and childhood obesity is
now a major public health problem -
one quarter of all Irish children are overweight, and childhood obesity is
approaching epidemic proportions.
Prevention is better than cure - we need to think about the future health
of children now! Poor diet and lack of physical activity are a health time bomb,
being
linked to an increased risk for:
 | Obesity |
| Type II Diabetes |
| Cancer |
| Heart Disease |
| Stroke |
Knowing about these illnesses is vitally
important for children, young people, parents and schools. For example,
although heart disease is rare in young people, it doesn't develop overnight
- heart disease results from decades of poor lifestyle habits that begin in
early childhood. The risk of contracting many common cancers is also linked
to lifestyle habits. Unfortunately, many children lead a “couch
potato” life, with very little physical activity, and a poor diet. If we don’t change
this situation, the next generation is going to be in real trouble.
More than a third of Irish adults are overweight. Poor diet and
inadequate physical activity are closely linked to obesity, but carrying a few extra pounds is really just the tip of the
iceberg. Ireland already has some of the worst rates of chronic disease in the
Western world, with 40% of our population dying from heart disease and 25%
from cancer.
It’s not all doom and gloom – most of these modern illnesses are
preventable. Simple changes to lifestyle have a big effect on quality of
life and life expectancy, and that's where we come in. By helping children
to develop healthy lifestyle habits, and by making healthy lifestyle choices
easier to access, we can protect the health of the next generation.
We Can Make a Difference...
RedBranch raise awareness of important lifestyle issues, and we
promote healthy lifestyle choices in children and young people. We don't just
talk about the problem, we help people to change their world so that healthy
choices are easier to access. For example, we help to organise healthy school
food, involving young people in the solution. We work with food suppliers to
ensure that schools and communities have access to healthier food options. We
also help to find the best ways of getting kids physically active - in the case
of older kids, we find out which activities they actually want, and help the
kids themselves to set up initiatives. For younger children, we help to promote
active play and parental involvement.
This site includes
health education material,
school resources,
practical tips for
parents, school food resources and student resources.The
service we provide to schools is
completely free, so if
you are an interested parent or teacher, contact us for more
information.
Get Involved!
If this issue
is important to you, and if you like what we're doing, let others know.
Email your friends and let them know about our site. Sign up to our
email newsletter. If you
have a website, consider linking to this site. Print our materials and give
them to your friends, or just mention the importance of the lifestyle issue
to others. We intend to create a lifestyle revolution in Ireland - together we can make a difference.
We hope
that you find our website useful. You may freely distribute all of our
school health resources, so long as you provide a reference/link to RedBranch.
Make Some Changes...
If you're a parent, why
not make some simple changes? You could keep sweets and other high calorie snacks for special
occasions rather than everyday foods, or you could start helping your kids
to be more physically active. See our parents
section for more ideas on improving your family's health.
If you are a teacher or work in a school, why not
make some changes? Evidence shows that when
children and young people have access to healthy food and physical activity,
behaviour and academic performance improves, as well as health. Secondary
schools could help students to start a school-fruit micro-business, or could
ensure that the school canteen stops selling junk food and provides healthy
options. Schools could also resolve to encourage physical activity by making
a wider range of activities available, such as hip-hop dance, aerobics, yoga
or salsa dance. Primary schools could operate a school fruit break, or could
start a Positive Playground initiative.
Contact RedBranch if you'd like help with these ideas or any other
healthy school issues.
|
|
Illnesses like heart disease,
cancer and stroke are closely linked
to lifestyle. By helping children and
young people to be physically
active and to have a healthy diet, the risk of these illnesses is
drastically reduced.
Children do not get enough
physical activity for good health, yet the average child
watches TV for 3 hours per day. If such
a child lives to be 70 years old, they will have spent 9 years passively
watching TV. It's time to get our kids moving.
According to the World Health Organisation, inadequate intake of fruit and
vegetables causes almost one fifth of gastrointestinal cancer and almost one
third of ischaemic heart disease... yet fruit and vegetable consumption in
Irish children is particularly low. Why not start a school
fruit break in your school? |
|
