40% of children kindergarten through 8th grade in New York City are either overweight or obese. Of that, 22% are obese and 18% are overweight. The study was based on the  254,076 children from 2008-2009. It was conducted by the Departments of Education and Health.

Pretty shocking.

Also sad is that the poorest children tended to be the heaviest. What to do? The schools have gone to 1% fat milk instead of whole milk. They’ve banned drinks with sweetened with sugar from school vending machines. They plan to focus on getting kids to be more active.

I hope New York City can turn things around. Maybe community gardens? More education and offering healthy choices in school lunch (that wasn’t addressed in the article).

More at: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7131826.html

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September starts the nations’s first  National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. The month-long focus on childhood obesity was passed by Congress earlier this year. The focus is on ways to prevent and educate about this serious health risk.

A new website www.HealthierKidsBrighterFutures.org has resources including a toolkit with fact sheets, sample letters to the editor, and  scripts for public service announcements.

A study released about the issue asserts that as much as 21% of children who are obese have not been categorized that way. That’s because parents tend to underestimate their kid’s weight.

When we have an obesity rate of over 30% for our children it is alarming! However, as I’ve pointed out before, reversing it would take a huge cultural shift. We would have to approach food differently. Restaurants serve food with loads of hidden fat and calories – more than we need in an entire day. Our schools are full of pop and candy machines that help pay for education. Stressed out parents grab dinner from a fast food drive through.

I like the focus on the issue but until we change policy and make cultural changes I’m afraid this problem will be like our bellies — growing larger by the year.

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“Right from the building, we weren’t just about building playgrounds. We were about building community.”

That quote is from the founder of KaBOOM! Darell Hammond. I love the name KaBOOM! because it’s fun – just like playgrounds. Fifteen years ago Hammond decided to start building playgrounds and has since built 1800 of them! Now there are about 75 on staff at the company and last year they brought in $21 million in revenue. Not bad.

KaBOOM also involves the community in planning and implementing the plans for a new playground. I love how he describes how this has a spillover effect. Once people see what they can accomplish together they want to do more.

Perhaps a lot of the genius besides involving the community is involving brands. They started with Home Depot and have been supported by brands like: Kraft, 24-Hour Fitness, Foresters (a Canadian insurance company), Huggies, JetBlue, KoolAid, Mutual of Omaha and MetLife, the NBA, Nestle and Giant/Stop & Shop.

The company decided to go open source and green. We hope that includes safe, recycled rubber for their playground surfaces! Whatever they do, it’s great work!

Next time you need a playground, be sure to look at KaBOOM! let the news media know and realize that you’re not only building a playground, you’re building your community.

Read more here: http://www.marcgunther.com/2010/08/24/kaboom-what-an-impact/

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If you thought the US was bad.  The obesity rate among Saudi men and women has risen to 70%! That’s according to the Saudi Diabetes and Endocrinology Society. So globally we’re having a collective problem with our weight.

Report Gives America an ‘F,’ and that Stands for ‘Fat’

As a side note I saw my neighbor last night who has lost considerable weight. I asked her what she did – her response? “I work out 70 mins. a day.” I guess if you work out that much you don’t have to diet as much (is that true?).

34% of middle-aged men are obese, the figure rises to 45% of middle-aged women. Also, like the US children are gaining and more of them are obese.

The culprits? Saudis are getting richer, there are more fast food restaurants, they aren’t eating as healthily and not getting enough exercise. Sound familiar?

Dr. Basim Fota, head of the Society’s Health Education Unit, said there have been adverse changes in the quantity and quality of food people eat and a four-fold increase in amount of fat in current meals. So like them we’re getting fat because we’re eating A LOT more of the substance.

The organization is working to help teach women how to prepare healthy food. They hold programs on healthy shopping, preparing food lists, cooking healthy dishes, nutritional analysis, nutritional evaluation of prepared dishes, arranging the dining table and the healthy Ramadan table.

I wish I had better news – but so far the trends show obesity is a growing problem.

He said the program is the first of its kind to provide information about preparing healthy meals, healthy shopping and low-calorie meals to emphasize the role of healthy nutrition in countering obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis among women in Saudi Arabia.

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Saginaw County in Michigan has an obesity rate near 40%, and a health insurance company is stepping in with grants to help reverse the trend.

A grant program by insurer UnitedHealthcare is offering grants of up to $1k to help schools and organizations fight rising obesity rates in youngsters.

To quality the programs are to be proposed by the community. They must encourage youth participation, help student academic achievement and improve workplace skills.

The insurer knows that obese children lead to obese adults — and obesity can be costly. It’s best to start early to fight it. According to the 2009 America’s Health Rankings,43% percent of adults will be obese by 2018 at a cost of over $340 billion in health care costs.

The current obesity rate among all people in Saginaw County is almost 37%

Past projects funded by the grants include healthy cooking classes, planting gardens, runs and walks. Some organizations used the grant to raise more funds for programs.

Idea: “We had a program that, instead of a spelling bee, it was a health bee competition between Boys and Girls Clubs in different cities,” Thompson said.

In 3 years, UnitedHealth has given grants to 361 schools and communities across the nation; 6 were awarded to Michigan communities last year.

See www.YSA.org/HEROES to apply. Applications are due Oct. 22; recipients will be notified in December and January.

We like to see these private partnerships – like how Whole Foods Donated Salad Bars to Schools) where companies contribute to solving this serious problem. The government is also involved. Can we do it without major cultural changes? That’s the question.

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It’s almost back to school time and that means school lunch. One of the issues with childhood obesity is the unhealthy school lunch that contributes to  poor eating habits. Whole Foods – a natural grocery store is stepping in to help (smart PR move) with the Salad Bar Project.

How you Can Help Fight Childhood Obesity? One way is to work locally and nationally to improve school lunch. The idea is “to help bring fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and healthy proteins to school lunch programs.”

Their goal is to provide a salad bar in a local school in each of the communities they serve.  The salad bars will be donated to local schools through a simple online grant process. Whole Foods Market is partnering with Cooper’s nonprofit, F3: Food Family Farming Foundation for the process. Any public elementary, middle or high school within 50 miles of a Whole Foods Market is eligible to apply with the support of the school principal, nutrition service director and the superintendent of the district.

The school must apply with an application and grant applications will be accepted between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1. Applicants will be chosen based on the grant criteria and the level of the school’s commitment to sustaining the salad bar, and will be announced in early January 2011.

The funding comes from donations at stores. Last year, Whole Foods Market and shoppers donated more than $700,000 for the project. They have a web site –  thelunchbox.org with tips for healthy lunches.

What kind of lunch are our kids eating at school? “On average, only 90 cents per lunch is spent on food and many children are eating mostly frozen, highly processed, packaged foods. With no national standardized limit on sugar or other ingredients like artificial colors, flavors or preservatives, it is common to find hamburgers, chicken nuggets, French fries, chocolate milk and corn dogs offered as a typical school lunch.”

Congress is now reviewing the Child Nutrition Act. It was passed in the U.S. Senate last week. The House of Representatives now needs to pass its version of the bill in time for President Obama to sign the legislation before Sept. 30, when the current Act expires. Failing to do so puts the new funding and other policy changes in jeopardy.

We hope to see a child nutrition bill that helps standardize healthier options for healthier eating in schools.

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If it’s good enough for President Obama, then one Philly town figures it’s good enough for them. That’s what the town said when they replaced their playground dirt with recycled tires. The rubber playground mulch will now provide a safe cushion for the kid’s who play there.

The borough used a community development grant to pay for the rubber mulch. The cost for two playgrounds was $56,434 and is the same surface used at the White House for their playground.

Rubberecycle gave 8 tons of green, recycled tires called Playsafer Rubber Mulch to the White House about a year ago.

The tires used to make the surface are chopped up in a million bits and come in different colors. This particular playground was a blue color.

“We use only tires taken freshly off rims from tire centers. We do not use any that are found along the side of the road or in a landfill. We shred them and recycle the steel and make the mulch,” according to Keith Sacks of Rubberecycle.

The benefits include

• needs no maintenance
• is safer for children who may fall
• non-toxic
• odor-free
• non-staining
• non-abrasive

Borough Mayor Bob Lebo said he’s pleased the council decided to buy the rubber mulch. “I think it’s great. It is much safer for our children and the other benefits certainly will pay off,” he said.

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The village of Helena in Ohio received the largest grant awarded this year from the Sandusky County Park District. Using the money with a match from the village they purchased new playground equipment. The project cost  $14,108. The grant amount totaled $16,000.

The playground equipment is 25 years old and was not safe. It now meets consumer product safety commission standards. “The new playground includes a climbing wall, three slides and a wave climber.”

The thing the article doesn’t state is what the playground surface will be – to us a critical issue. According to U.S. Product Safety Commission report:

“There are two options available for surfacing public playgrounds: unitary and loose-fill materials. A playground should never be installed without protective surfacing of some type. Concrete, asphalt, or other hard surfaces should never be directly under playground equipment. Grass and dirt are not considered protective surfacing because wear and environmental factors can reduce their shock absorbing effectiveness.”

They further state:

The surfacing under and around playground equipment is one of the most important factors in reducing the likelihood of life-threatening head injuries. A fall onto a shock absorbing surface is less likely to cause a serious head injury than a fall onto a hard surface.

Rubberecycle encourages people to do the “egg test” – if you drop an egg from the top of the playground – does it break? With rubber mulch it has been shown not to. That means a safer playground for your kids.

Is your Playground Surface Safe?

A playground in Cambria County has had crews called in once again – and while the playground was safe – there can still be safety problems. Firefighters stopped at Diamod Playground in suburban Johnstown to rescue kids who got stuck and needed help. It illustrates our theme of playground safety.

A young child got wedged in between the tube slide and the slide’s bracing after climbing up the outside of the slide. Fire crews had to pry the child from the equipment. The same story repeated another time when a 9-year-old got stuck in a baby swing.

Wargo said all the playground equipment is up to code on safety inspections and it is only about seven years old. The issue is the parents keeping watch and making sure children use the equipment in safe ways. There were warnings written at the playground.

We urge parents to supervise their children. Encourage them to observe playground safety guidelines.

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There are 8,000 Certified Playground Safety Inspectors (CPSI) worldwide. These are folks who are credentialed to inspect playgrounds for safety issues. They help ensure each playground they inspect is up to current national standards and is done in coordination with the NRPA who offers training courses.

Even if you’re not official, you can look out for unsafe conditions at playgrounds.

Is your Playground Surface Safe? Here are some guidelines to help you find out:

• There should be no missing, broken or worn-out components
• All hardware should be secure
• The wood, metal or plastic should not show signs of fatigue or deterioration
• All parts should be stable with no apparent signs of loosening
• Surfacing material must be maintained
• Check for signs of vandalism

Learn more about the Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) training and certification program

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