New campaign to combat rising childhood obesity in Canberra
More than $500,000 is being spent to educate young Canberra children about healthy lifestyle choices as authorities grapple with an obesity crisis.
An ACT Government grant to ACT Medicare Local comes after recent figures revealed a quarter of children aged under five in the ACT are overweight or obese.
Blake Gledhill, aged 3, enjoys eating carrots and oranges, but his mother Andrea has resorted to some camouflage and fun to introduce other vegetables.
"Sometimes you have to be a little bit creative so I like to hide the vegies in my dinners, in my casseroles and things," she said.
"I'll take the skin off the zucchini and then grate it, because if there's any green in the dish, then they'll find it.
"And we name the dinners creatively so we call the rissoles 'space ships' and give the vegetables some space names."
New printed and online guides will give parents some ideas about keeping kids active, well rested and on a balanced diet.
Health Minister Simon Corbell said the advice encouraged the kind of healthy habits that prevent chronic disease later in life.
"To have a quarter of our children under the age of five overweight or obese is a real problem," he said.
"It means a legacy headed towards us of long-term lifestyle-related disease such as diabetes.
"This type of illness we really can avoid though good choices early in life."
As part of the program, doctors and nurses will receive extra training and distribute the resources to parents.
ACT Medicare Local chair Dr Martin Liedvogel said GPs were important information providers in the model.
"If the weight of a child reaches a worrisome level - to know what services to refer parents to," he said.
"So general practitioners know what the services are on the ground that they can refer the parents and the child to for help."
