The picture of poor health: Malta’s child obesity epidemic
There’s another thing the Auditor General said this week: kids are
not getting enough physical education inside government schools
Matthew Vella
There’s a price tag on child obesity and the health ministry claims it hovers at around €18 million every year. Other experts disagree – in 2008 the Grech and Farrugia found 25% of 3,461 children aged five to six were overweight and obese, and predicted health costs related to obesity will be as much as €70 million a year. That’s almost a new parliament.
There is yet no complete set of data on child obesity in Malta, although it has been acknowledged that the nation faces an “alarming” public health problem. Suffice it to say that in 2008, the WHO’s survey on health behaviour in school-aged children carried out in 2006 showed a deteriorating situation, listing Malta and the USA with the highest overall percentages of children who are obese: namely 25% and 30% of girls and boys respectively aged 11; 31% of both girls and boys aged 13; and 28% and 32% of girls and boys of 15.
This state of affairs seems to have been only confirmed, yet again, by the National Audit Office. This time pursuing investigations unrelated to power stations, its report into physical education lessons in state primary schools offered a clue into the worrying problem of child obesity. They are not even getting the basic time required for PE.
According to the report, fewer lessons are being held than the four, 30-minute weekly sessions recommended by the National Minimum Curriculum in primary schools. That’s also because the schools do not have adequate playgrounds, and because primary school teachers do not follow up on the weekly lessons given by peripatetic PE teachers.
Maltese children are now getting less exercise than ever before, and parents are even resorting to taking their children to special kids’ gyms to lose the fat and change their diets.
Pippo Psaila is one of the torchbearers of Maltese sport, and his career even reflects his own personal indefatigability: national football team coach, director of sport for the national Olympic committee, businessman and political candidate – it’s a remarkable CV.
So it’s no surprise when he says that the Maltese educational system, with its emphasis on traditional subjects, is crowding out physical education and sports.
“The system is highly taxing for PE and sport practice in general in view of curriculum content, the system of examination.”
Added to this was the NAO’s finding that PE teachers found students unenthusiastic about physical education, indeed showing “apathy and reluctance” to sweat themselves into some basic form of fitness.
This in itself was a continuation from the lack of importance placed on PE at primary level – the NAO said – but it did say that kids, teachers and their parents are just giving “overriding priority to examined subjects”, as Psaila points out.
Psaila hopes the reform to increase PE to two hours in primary and secondary state schools by 2010, and to three hours by 2015 will achieve fruition. But he adds that diet is also to blame inside these schools.
“Lunch breaks are not adequately maximised, especially at primary school level. There is a gross lack of food intake education for children and parents and also some foods offered for retail sale in school tuck shops leave much to be desired. There is a need for a joint effort by education and health promotion units to educate parents and children as to what and how much food is to be consumed.”
Psaila points out that the National Commission for Sports initiated various programmes to diffuse the value of sport as a tool for a better quality lifestyle. “Things are certainly better than they were four years ago, but I think this aspect needs more resources put at the disposal of us all so that we can ensure a better quality of life… which after all is all Vision 2015 and beyond is all about,” he says, chipping in Lawrence Gonzi’s blueprint for the future as a reference point.
Like Psaila, Dr Kirill Micallef Stafrace is a former candidate for the European Parliament. A sports doctor by profession, Micallef Stafrace argues that kids are becoming physically lazier.
“They are falling well short of the recommended minimum one-hour daily physical activity… everybody in this sector is anxiously waiting the recommendations of the interdepartmental committee the government had set up a couple of years back. Such a fuss was made about swine flu, yet hardly anything is being made on the factual obesity epidemic… people die from that too, definitely more than from swine flu.”
Micallef Stafrace also says that full blame cannot be laid at the feet of the authorities. Parents play a role in encouraging their children to, say, get them to watch less TV or spend less time at computers and video games, and get them out to exercise.
“A study in the USA showed very clearly that reducing TV viewing and computer time significantly reduced obesity levels as well as leading to an increase in physical activity. One must also remember that childhood obesity is also found among private school children. These two facts show that we cannot put the blame completely on the government.”
There are, however, other bureaucratic problems hampering kids’ physical fitness inside state schools. The NAO found that recent graduates with a Bachelor of Education (Honours) specialised in PE faced high thresholds to apply for the post of PE teachers. And a collective agreement bargained with the teachers’ union gave primary school teachers less time to follow up the PE lessons by peripatetic teachers.
These and other changes recommended by the NAO are expected to be the next challenge for the educational authorities, if they want to remove Maltese kids from of the most unsavoury of global rankings.
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