A ground-breaking program in the small rural town of Colac in Victoria proves that childhood obesity can be beaten.

According to Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike, the Be Active Eat Well project achieved outstanding results.

  “The people of Colac have given hope to communities around the world by showing that obesity can be combated in any community that is prepared to try and make a real difference,” Ms Pike said.

  “The Colac project involved parents, schools, government, fast food outlets, recreation services and the local media – all working together to improve the health and wellbeing of children aged two to 12 years by promoting healthy nutrition and physical activity."

“Major elements of the project included reducing the amount of TV, computer and game screen time, increasing activity levels and assisting children to eat well through reducing consumption of high sugar drinks and energy dense snack foods.

“Even fast food outlets have come to the party by altering the types of oils they cook their foods in, which has helped achieve these groundbreaking results,” Ms Pike said.

Strategies

The community initiative saw successful trials of a range of anti-obesity strategies, including:

• Sending information home to parents about putting healthier food and drinks in lunch boxes
• Introducing fruit breaks at school
• Establishing an after-school activity program where local sporting clubs came to the school
• Walk to school days
• A ‘TV power-down’ program which educated kids about alternatives to television watching.

And the results? Prof. Boyd Swinburn, Deakin University, who oversaw the Be Active Eat Well project, reported it reduced weight gain by an average of one kilogram for children in the trial and reduced waist growth by three centimetres. It also achieved:

• A 21.4% reduction in TV viewing
• A 68.2% reduction in sweet drink consumption
• A 57.1% increase in the amount of healthier food in lunchboxes
• An increase in the number of kids participating in after school physical activity programs by 67.9%
• An 28.6% increase in the consumption of healthier dinner time foods
• A 3.6% increase in the consumption of healthy takeaway foods
• A 60.7% increase in positive attitudes toward healthy eating/physical activity.

The Way Forward

A recent study of trend data showed Australia has the highest rate of increase in childhood obesity – twice the rate of the US and three times the rate of the UK. With overweight and obesity rates in children at over 25% and over 40% for some ethnic groups, finding a way to change direction is critical.

The Colac project took an initial year of planning, involving building an agreed action plan with the community. Consultations with the key groups and then a stakeholder workshop to prioritise possible actions was the starting point.

The project began by building the community’s capacity to undertake its own promotion of healthy eating and physical activity. Then the focus was on getting consistent messages out to the children, parents and the community.

Changing key behaviours like reducing sweet drinks and being more active after school were a major focus. Finally the project supported parents with an education program and they improved the deep-frying practices in food outlets.

Hopefully similar initiatives will be followed by communities all over Australia – our children need them.