Too much screen time eating into playtime

Too much screen time eating into playtime

''We have to target all behaviours - eating, screen time and physical activity. No one action is going to be the panacea to fix this,'' Dr Hardy, of the University of Sydney, said.

The 380-page report will be released today by the Minister for Healthy Lifestyles, Kevin Humphries, and the Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli.

Mr Humphries said the government would? use the report's recommendations to help meet its goal of reducing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in five to 16-year-olds to 21 per cent by 2015."   - Note: the table supplied related to how children spend their time on weekends, I'm aware of a number of children whose parents implement a very rigid regime that doesn't include social or recreational TV or computer use on school days.

It is a great idea. But if it's not shelved by a general apathy/red tape/ finger pointing about budget allocation and usage that's prevalent in government circles, then it will be killed by the lack of funding which is endemic at the local school level. State schools are desperate for money to pay for the bare necessities.

Any action of the sort suggested by Dr Hardy should be focussed on the adults in the equation. Principals and teachers programme time for mandatory PE (do they still call it that) activity, food sold by tuck shops should have it's content audited and parents participate by ensuring that the tv/Xbox/PC is off and the children are outside AND engaged in activity. You can't lump all responsibility onto educators, they are already shouldering more than enough responsibility.