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The South Australian Health Department has announced that it will issue guidelines on the amount of exercise required by children under age five.
Presentation of guidelines
South Australian Health Minister, John Hill, will present the exercise guidelines for young children, including information for parents and childcare workers, at the Healthy Weight Round Table. The round table will include representatives of doctors, farmers, businesses, health insurers, retailers, scientists and schools.
Lack of focus on pre-school exercise
John Hill stated that the motivation for developing exercise guidelines was the scarcity of information for parents and early childhood carers and educators about children’s exercise, under age five:
‘At the moment there is a lot of information out there for parents in terms of nutrition and what kids should be eating—but very little advice on just how much exercise, or playtime activity their pre-schoolers should be doing to stay fit …
'We want to help parents, and childcare workers, provide the best possible start for these kids.'
Other anti-obesity initiatives
The head of the World Health Organisation Centre for Obesity Prevention, Professor Boyd Swinburn, will also be speaking at the Healthy Weight Round Table. He will discuss other methods of dealing with childhood obesity, including calling on state governments to ban junk food advertising aimed at children.
Professor Swinburn stated that bans on junk food advertising would ‘be far and away the most effective potential intervention that governments could make … ’. This is due to advertising’s impact on all children, and the limits of funding and scope on other anti-obesity measures.
Read AdelaideNow's 'Exercise campaign for early childhood'.
Further reading
Related news articles on the Early Childhood Australia website:
Feb 2007 – Early childhood research: The impact of infant weight gain
Feb 2006 – Early Childhood Australia backs Government moves against childhood obesity
View these quality-assured Early Childhood Australia publications:
Every Child – Healthy children – Vol. 12 No. 2, 2006
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