Conquering childhood obesity will take legislative action, conference told

A food culture that's made junk food the norm for many children hasto change, says Dr.YoniFreedhoff, who founded aninstitute to help people manage their weight without surgery.

But getting junk food out of the childhood diet will require legislative change, just as cutting tobacco use did, said Freedhoff,director of theBariatricMedical Institute in Ottawa.

The benefits of a healthy meal at home and the benefits of unstructured physical activity and free play are really tremendous, and our kids are not getting that opportunity anymore.- Sara Kirk, Dalhousie University professor

"The issue, in part, is because of the world we are now living in, where junk food is constant and pervasive and almost impossible to avoid," said Freedhoff, anassistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.

"So really, we've got a situation where to eat healthfully in this world, you have to go out of your way to do so. And it really should be the other way around."

Freedhoffspoke in Monctonon Wednesday at a Heart and Stroke Foundation conference on the prevention of childhood obesity.

Thirty-six per cent of children in New Brunswick are either overweight or obese, according to the foundation.

Freedhoff said cutting children's exposure to junk food will not happen overnight and will require communities and legislatures to take steps, just as they did to decrease smoking.

"Tobacco first required discussion and upset from the community and push from parents and kids and other people to try to make changes," Freedhoff said.

"And once there was a sufficient discussion in the public, legislators were able to champion this for change as well, and we'll see that too with food."

Sara Kirk, a professorof health promotion at Dalhousie University, said the approach to healthy eating has to movebeyond things such as weight and body mass index, a calculation that uses height and weight to determine whether a person is overweight.

"Unfortunately,the Maritimes are leading the country in number of problems, one of which is weight status of kids but also other chronic diseases that are really, really putting a burden on our health-care system," Kirk said.

Lifestyles have changed so thatkids spend a lot of time in cars and don't play outside the way earlier generations did.

Meanwhile, kids' activities often interfere with meal times, Kirk said.

"The benefits of a healthy meal at home and the benefits of unstructured physical activity and free play are really tremendous, and our kids are not getting that opportunity anymore," Kirk said.

Other people at the conference agreed more awareness is needed.

They also agreed there is no quick fix, althoughFreedhoff said he's hopeful for the "distant" future.

"I'm not necessarily hopeful for the tomorrow future," he said. "And I think we need to stop thinking that if we're not going to get change right away we shouldn't be pushing for change.

"I think we should push but appreciate that it may take decades to get where we need to go. That's normal, that's OK, and I think that's exactly what we're going to see with food culture and especially with kids and junk food."

Freedhoffsaid he's already encouraged by signs of change, including the addition ofcalories to menus.

But he would like to see other measures, such as taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and a ban on advertising of unhealthy foods to kids.

"There's no shortage of sandbags to stop this flood," he said. "We just need to start filling them."

The childhood obesity conferencesold out, with more than 300 people in attendance.