Playing towards a better future

Schools are seen traditionally as places to educate and improve the mind but they can have an equal role in teaching children to develop a positive relationship with food, good health for the body and encouraging them to be active in play. This change of thinking can start at school, through lesson plans and the constructive and trusted relationship between pupils, teachers and parents.

The health and wellbeing advantages of outdoor play spaces provide the ideal learning link to make this happen, by creating an environment where children are given free rein to expend their spare energy away from the classroom.

Forwards, not backwards
There is a clear arrow of time that reaches from past interventions to tackle childhood obesity, through to current actions still trying to redress the balance, all set against future predictions of increasing levels of obesity. The significance of this should not be underestimated. Statistics produced by the National Children’s Measurement Programme found there was almost no change in the 18 per cent prevalence of year-six children in England classified as obese from 2007-2010, which suggests that health interventions of the last few years are proving ineffective and that parents, and perhaps their children, are not being engaged with effectively.

Action against obesity needs to be taken sooner rather than later, but investing time and resources in active play to improve children’s health needs to be preventative in order to safeguard the health of future generations. Raising active children, well-educated in the long term benefits of healthy lifestyles, will empower them as healthy adults to inspire and encourage their own children to eat well and exercise.

Many previous government health initiatives have focused more upon adults and not current generations of children. The health responsibility deal has gone some way to help with the traffic-lighting of dangerous foodstuffs (such as junk food) and positive action through the Change4Life programme, but the desired results are simply not there to act as evidence. It is the ‘red-light’ food and drink companies who should be reached out to put money back into schools and help to organise future educational initiatives on childhood obesity.

Warnings from history
It should come as no surprise that TV chef turned activist, Jamie Oliver has stepped up his campaign on healthy eating for kids with his attendance at this year’s One Young World conference in Switzerland to try and force the obesity issue with the UN, alongside calls from medical journal, the Lancet for international governments to wake up and take action before it is too late.

However, these passionate warnings are nothing new. Earlier in the year, the British Medical Journal warned that a ‘tsunami of obesity’ threatened all nations equally if nothing is done. Highlighting the almost viral nature of obesity, Jamie Oliver has cited the harmful fallout of Western obesity-led behaviours with their emphasis on materialism and sedentary lifestyles (both developed nations, the UK and US have the worst rates of obesity) such as consuming poor quality, unhealthy pre-packaged foods upon developing nations who in turn pick-up these bad habits as they aim to grow similarly in prosperity, making obesity a genuine one-world problem.

The current role of educating children about healthy eating and physical activity has been placed almost entirely upon parents and the potential for schools to help drive these learning outcomes has been largely ignored or is seen as an invasive threat from the nanny state.

International research published in the Lancet also argues that the UK government is simply not doing enough to tackle obesity, with high-risk food companies only encouraged to act via recommendations, not legislation. It has failed to react to the growing concern that the rising costs of current obesity strategies, which often seek to treat obesity but rarely to prevent it, threatens to make UK healthcare financially unsustainable for future generations.

Therefore, surely a societal problem as serious and viral as obesity requires a multiple-faceted strategy with communities, government, the NHS and schools all pulling together? Not only are schools places of learning, many of them are already equipped with educational play facilities and hardworking, experienced teachers who know their pupil’s individual needs.

Mixing it up
In schools, making the time for play is often a balancing act of both funding and other more tangible resources such as staff and play facilities. But in order to encourage active play and new learning outcomes, a mixture of subjects and play facilities can be embraced.

A recent report by the Welsh Schools Inspectorate (ESTYN) has tried to highlight the many benefits of moving more education outdoors and combining it with active play to let pupils be more active in school, as well as improving their attention span and opening up new learning outcomes of the great outdoors. For example, children can play a game that requires them to gather and identify natural materials such as leaves, this exercise (both physical and educational) can then be continued in the classroom; or making music using play equipment and natural items outside and using ‘real’ instruments once back inside.

A more sporting variation on playing outdoors would be to use play items such as monkey bars or slides to help children understand the health benefits of exercise through physical literacy; the ways in which different play actions relate directly to those in sports, in this case, swinging on monkey bars and throwing a javelin or stretching out on a swing much like long-jumpers. Bringing play lessons learnt on outdoor equipment into the classroom can double both the fun and educational value of the school day, as well as giving children the chance to let off steam which improves overall concentration.

Less childhood obesity
Even as an important part of the school day, play has currently received little or no encouragement from government while communities remain keen for change and immediate action to help curb the rising tides of childhood obesity.

Schools are a great opportunity to do this and to help drive home the obesity action message, as well as creating new support networks to help children who have issues about their weight or experiencing bullying. Like the communal unity of a church, a school is often more than the sum of its buildings, and it is crucial to ensure that all pupils are given access to play at school and to recognise both the learning and health value of this and act now on childhood obesity, both in and out of the classroom. 

For more information
Web: www.api-play.org and www.sportsandplay.com