Should we be giving children choices about their health?
Should we be giving children choices about their health?
Energy balance is important for health. An increased energy intake, decreased energy expenditure, or both, may lead to obesity, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Childhood obesity has increased significantly in the last few decades and it has reached epidemic dimensions, but this is not only the result of an energy imbalance. Scientific evidence has shown that environmental and lifestyle factors, such as sedentary behaviours are also linked with this disease. However, are children and/or parents conscious about the importance of being physically active and do parents really know what a healthy diet is? Are parents giving their children a choice in the food they eat or is a child’s health too important to risk giving children the freedom of choice over? Childhood is a key period to establish the basis of healthy behaviours and patterns and nurturing emotional and psychological wellness in children may continue long into adulthood. This dilemma will debate the child’s right to choose their own physical activity and their own diet from a range of perspectives including medical, nutritional, physical, sociological, psychological and historical viewpoints.
Lead academic: Dr Richard Winsley
Anchor academic: Louise Croft Dr Luis Gracia Marco
Taster session
Date: 1 November
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Location: Amory Moot
Description: This session will be dedicated to familiarising students with the issue surrounding children’s health and how much the children should be given choices about the food they eat and the activity/sport they take part in. The discussion will introduce the important issues relating to: actually measuring physical activity levels, how the built environment positively or negatively influences the practice of physical activity, the influence of social marketing dealing with these factors, the concept of behavioural change, and the law surrounding the rights of the child.
The session will be led by Judy Hargadon (OBE), the Chief Executive of the Children's Food Trust ( formerly School Food Trust) and Dr Richard Winsley, Associate Director of the Children‘s Health and Exercise Research Centre. After outlining the issues that will be debated within this dilemma, they will engage in a question / answer session with the audience.
Sign up: If you miss this session you can view it on ELE.
If you wish to pick this dilemma sign up through My Career Zone from 5th November.
Judy Hargadon (OBE)
Judy Hargadon is Chief Executive of the Children’s Food Trust, formerly known as the School Food Trust. She joined the Trust, a national charity, in April 2006 as its Chief Executive. Her children, now young adults, inspired her to become involved in food issues. She is determined that parents nowadays are better supported to help their children eat healthily than she was. In addition to a 30 year career in health care management, including time as Chief executive of a Trust and a Health Authority and a special focus on innovation, improvement and workforce, Judy was actively involved in the Take Our Daughters to Work scheme, and chaired the trustees for 5 years. She has been a governor for two schools. Under Judy’s leadership the organisations have shown how better school food can change eating habits and improve concentration and has built constructive working relationships with the many parties who influence children’s food, to give children better life chances.
Dr Richard Winsley
Dr Richard Winsley has always had a keen interest in children’s health and completed his PhD titled ‘Peak aerobic power in children‘. He has worked as a Clinical Exercise Physiologist in the National Health Service, working with both cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation patients in addition to coordinating a GP exercise on prescription scheme. Richard’s research interests lie in children’s cardiovascular function during exercise and into overtraining / overreaching in children and adults. He has published widely, given numerous invited presentations and presented his research to a range of international conferences including ACSM, ECSS and PWP. Richard is also the Director of the Undergraduate Teaching degrees and has ten years of teaching experience in higher education.
Inquiry Groups
If you sign up for this dilemma you will have the opportunity to work in an inquiry group focusing on one of these areas;
- Social Marketing (Sport and Health Science)
- Diet and child health (Nutrition)
- Engaging children in to making healthy choices (Medical)
- Physical activity of children (Sport and Health Science)
- The right of the child (Law)
