On the 19th of June the HSE Healthy Weight for Children Programme Leads from the Healthy Eating Active Living Programme and the National Healthy Childhood Programme hosted a webinar that brought together researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to learn about the latest research, developments, and resources in child health and weight.
Sarah O’Brien, National Lead Healthy Eating Active Living Programme facilitated the webinar. Dr Abigail Collins of the National Healthy Childhood Programme in her opening remarks highlighted that 1 in 5 children in Ireland live with overweight or obesity and this rises to 1 in 4 adolescents. The webinar also included an address by Minister of State in the Department of Health responsible for Public Health, Colm Burke, who stressed the concern with these figures being higher for children living in areas of disadvantage.
Dr. Celine Murrin presented the recent Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI Round 6) results, some key headlines:
- In an average classroom of thirty children, six will have overweight or obesity
- In DEIS schools one in every four children have overweight or obesity
- No differences, in all categories, were seen between urban and rural areas
- The majority of schools have a curriculum, environment and activities that are known to promote positive health outcomes
Veronica Conti, Project Manager in Healthy Eating Active Living followed the COSI launch with an overview of the development of the new Healthy Weight for Children Action Plan 2024-2028. Fiola Murphy, Child Health Programme Development Officer and Dr. Ide NicDonncha, Principal Medical Officer provided their experience implementing the plan implementation in CHO1 as member and chair of the CHO1 Healthy Weight for Children Implementation Group including their innovative and accessible ebooks of child health information aimed at parents and healthcare professionals.
A panel discussion that included Dr Celine Murrin, Geraldine Sexton, Senior Project Dietitian Healthy Eating Active Living, and Dr. Anne Marie Hourihan, Senior Clinical Psychologist, Weight Management Services Children and Young People (CHO5) rounded out the webinar focused on a new resource, Talking to your child about health and weight that can be found on healthpromotion.ie. The full recording of the webinar can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snEFPDAq0zw