2003 Sports Industry Leaders Summit
14 October 2003

“Giving Our Kids a Sporting Chance”
A National Approach to Overcoming Childhood Obesity

Labor Policy Announcement:

Tackling Obesity and Promoting Community Wellbeing: Labor’s plan for a healthy and more active Australia.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.

The obesity issue is not a new problem. The World Health Organisation first sounded the alarm in 1991, and since this time a number of organisations both worldwide and within Australia have continued to call for action.

Despite these warnings and calls for action, there has to date been no direct or comprehensive response to this issue at the federal level.

Early this morning, Labor released our policy, titled: Tackling Obesity and Promoting Community Wellbeing: Labor’s plan for a healthy and more active Australia.  This policy represents the first concerted federal effort to improve the general health and wellbeing of all Australians by promoting physical activity and healthy eating habits. 

Labor will invest $25 million over 4 years to promote community wellbeing and reduce obesity incidence rates across Australia.

By increasing physical activity participation opportunities and providing better access to accurate dietary information, particularly for children, Labor will deliver better health outcomes.

This innovative multi-portfolio policy has brought together the Sport, Health, Education and Children and Youth Affairs portfolios for the first time to create a policy that specifically addresses the issue of the nation’s escalating obesity incidence and declining levels of physical activity.

This is an important integrated policy that will allow early intervention to prevent illness and disease in society. By constructively addressing long term and inter-generational health issues it will maximise the opportunities to improve the wellbeing of our children now, and when they are adults.

While there has been an overwhelming lack of federal response so far, a number of important steps have been taken in other fora.

·  The New South Wales and Victoria State Governments have recently taken the initiative and held State Obesity Summits;

·  The Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity holds an annual conference where industry specialists and academics conducting research in the field come together to share information and discuss potential problem solving options;

·  and groups like Sports Industry Australia use the Sport Industry Leaders Summit forum to bring together important stakeholders in an effort to develop a National Approach to Overcoming Childhood Obesity.

The result of these many excellent fact finding experiences is a wealth of knowledge and some strong recommendations.  However, for a variety of reasons; lack of funding; lack of time; lack of coordination, this advice has sat untouched by the Howard Government.  In fact the key recommendations of a 1997 National Health and Medical Research Council strategic plan for the prevention of overweight and obesity have been ignored at the Federal level for six years.

The two key factors that are consistently marked as major contributors to Australia’s health issue are an increase in sedentary lifestyle due to decreases in participation in sport and other physical activities, and a concurrent increase in the amount of high energy and high fat foods eaten in the diet.

Labor’s policy has two main elements that address these contributing factors: establishing a new $15m Community Wellbeing Fund to enhance wellbeing through increasing physical activity and implementing a $10m National Strategy to Reduce Childhood Obesity.

Together, these initiatives will increase the number of people involved in physical activities, and improve the dietary habits of all Australians.

I am joined here today by my colleagues Julia Gillard, Shadow Minister for Health and Aging and Senator Jacinta Collins, Shadow Minister for Children and Youth.  They will speak to specific aspects of the policy.  Jenny Macklin, Shadow Minister for Education and Labor’s deputy leader is unable to be here, so Senator Collins will be addressing education aspects of our policy.

Before I go into more detail about the Community Wellbeing aspect of our policy, today’s conference presents an excellent opportunity to reflect on the role of sport and recreation in our society.

Labor has understood for a very long time that there is much more to sport than a competition and a celebration of success at elite and other levels.

Sport and recreation obviously provides physical activity opportunities, and participation in physical activities enhances physical health and wellbeing, improves mental health, and assists in the development of personal attributes like self-esteem, leadership, cooperation and communication. 

These social, cultural and economic attributes of sport and recreation are now formally recognised in Labor’s policy.

Sport is also an intrinsic part of the Australian culture and way of life. Whether playing for Australia, cheering for your favourite team, participating in the local fun run or going for a walk with friends, sport and recreation brings people together.

Labor believes that sport is a coalescing force; part of the social glue which binds families, communities, regions and indeed the whole nation. Sport creates role models who inspire children and adults alike, and participation means we can all be a part of that inspiration.  Sport evokes pride in ourselves, our children, our community and contributes to our sense of local and national identity,

Community based sport and recreation offers a sense of belonging. It provides one of the main opportunities outside of work and family.  It allows people to interact and develop links with like-minded others within their community, region and beyond.

Labor recognises that participation in physical activity, recreation and sports of all kinds, plays an integral role in motivating lifestyle changes that lead to improvements in general health and wellbeing.

Therefore a key aspect of facilitating healthier lifestyles for all Australians through the provision of increased physical activity opportunities at the community level.

Given that Australia urgently needs a coordinated community strategy to reverse the trend in falling physical activity rates, so what better way is there than through the appeal of sport and recreation?

That is why Labor will establish a $15 million Community Wellbeing Fund to enable community groups to employ people to organise and implement physical activities and events in their local area.

A lack of skilled people to work at the grass roots level, particularly in remote or disadvantaged regions, where there may be the facilities, but not the human resources required to coordinate their effective use with community based initiatives.

Rockhampton’s 10,000 Steps project provides an outstanding example of a community organised program that focuses specifically on reaching and engaging socio-economically disadvantaged and sedentary individuals within the Rockhampton community. The Community Wellbeing Fund will provide the resources for the employment of people required to develop and steer successful community based initiatives like the 10000 steps project.

The success of the Community Wellbeing Fund program relies on the development of strong partnerships with State and local government. Labor will provide the funding and national coordination, while State and local government will be encouraged to provide essential in-kind support such as office space, information technology assistance and/or meeting venue and facility access.

The Community Wellbeing Fund will be administered jointly through the Department of Health and Ageing and a new Active Life Division of the Australian Sports Commission, and other appropriate departments as required.

State Health Promotion Fund Organisations will be important partners as the use of health promotion models will ensure that positive health messages are linked with funded participation projects.

The Community Wellbeing Fund links directly with Labor’s sport policy, and in particular Active Life, a Labor initiative that will assist the delivery of participation programs to all Australians.

Labor will establish a new Active Life Division of the Australian Sports Commission to increase Australians’ participation in sporting and general physical activity.  This will be funded from within the existing Australian Sports Commission’s budget.

Labor’s goal is to reverse the trend in falling participation rates by providing more opportunities for all Australians and encouraging those adults who are inactive to be at least moderately active; those who are occasionally active to be regularly active; and those who are regularly active to either be very active, or to maintain their current level of activity.

Active Life will focus specifically on providing community organisations, sports and recreation clubs, local government, regional sports bodies and State and National Sporting Organisations; with the support they require to provide more broad scale physical activity opportunities. 

Active Life will place a strong emphasis on public advocacy and education to motivate people to become more physically active. It will promote the value of family physical activity as an important part of improving wellbeing and developing a healthy lifestyle, and promote the concept that sport and recreation creates social capita, as well as being a major factor in improving community wellbeing.

Active Life is a key element of Labor’s plan to improve community wellbeing and further details of the link with sport and recreation will be announced in the future as part of Labor’s Sport and Recreation Policy.

Changes to exercise behaviour alone will not make the difference. Nutrition is a vital element in the development of healthier lifestyles. Bad eating habits and lack of awareness of good nutrition have contributed to unprecedented weight gains witnessed in Australia in recent years.

Labor will use expert knowledge from key government, community and industry bodies including food manufacturers, retailers, consumer groups and the media, to develop a National Nutrition Education Framework for the education of all Australians, particularly parents.

Labor’s $2.5 million National Nutrition Education Framework promote initiatives that focus on the development of positive self-image and self esteem amongst all Australians, particularly children. 

This will be a part of Labor’s commitment to reducing childhood obesity. Labor will provide $10 million for a National Strategy to Reduce Childhood Obesity.

My colleague Julia Gillard, Shadow Minister for Health will provide the detail for this strategy in her address.

Positive self-esteem is a critical element of individual wellbeing and a necessary pre-requisite for developing a positive approach to healthy eating and participation in physical activity. A major aim of Labor's strategy is to help Australians create positive and realistic attitudes and perceptions about their own bodies. 

Behaviours such as constantly bringing out the bathroom scales, checking body mass index and skinfold measures, or subscribing to miracle diet cures are destructive. They help create a negative body image and undermine the benefits of eating a healthy well-balanced diet and participating in physical activity.

The emphasis needs to shift from assessing ‘healthy weight’ through comparisons with media megastars and using oversimplified tools, such as hip to waist ratios, body fat percentages or body mass indexes as definitive measures of health.

These measures fail to take into account the wide variety of differing body shapes, bone structures, muscle masses and general fitness of individuals.

The emphasis should be on promoting healthy body shapes and sizes.

While educating all Australian’s is a vital aspect of improving eating and exercise habits, one group that require special attention are Australia’s youth. Children in general do not have the knowledge or life experience required to make well informed decisions regarding their health and so must be guided by the behaviours of those who mould their lives, in particular parents and teachers.

One of the most alarming health statistics, and the reason we have gathered here today, is the incidence rate of obesity amongst Australian children. Quite clearly, we must instil in our children positive healthy eating and exercise habits for life. This means encouraging them to participate in physical activities and to develop healthy and nutritious dietary habits.

Another area Labor is focused on is a range of initiatives that involve working with school communities to achieve positive health and wellbeing outcomes for children.

My Colleague Senator Jacinta Collins, representing Jenny Macklin, Shadow Minister for Employment, Education and Training will detail education related aspects of the policy in her presentation.

There are a number of successful and inspirational initiatives that have been introduced into schools already.

Robert de Castella’s SmartStart for Kids is an example of an innovative initiative that was introduced in schools in response to growing concerns about rising levels of childhood obesity.

Under the SmartStart program, children have body composition, aerobic fitness, strength, power, coordination and flexibility measures taken.  Confidential feedback regarding measures, along with positive health and fitness messages are given to both children and their parents.

During the four years that SmartStart has been operating, over 20,000 children in the ACT and South Australia have been profiled.

Labor believes that the SmartStart model is an outstanding example of the type of program that would be helpful in encouraging parents to develop their interest in the relative health of their child within the school community.

Another example of social entrepreneurialism is Bluearth.

The Bluearth Institute’s Discovery School Experience provides another example of a program that specifically aims to improve health and promote positive self esteem through the medium of physical activity in schools.

The Discovery School Experience is a unique program that engages children in activities that empower self-knowledge and self-acceptance, and provides a stepping-stone for their lifetime involvement in physical activity.

SmartStart and Bluearth's Discovery School Experience are two examples of intra-school initiatives that Labor believes would be helpful in encouraging parents to develop their interest in the relative health of their child within the school community.

Labor will provide $500,000 to implement student wellbeing pilot programs for school children in disadvantaged communities.

The provision of appropriate physical activity and sport in schools is an important component of promoting healthy lifestyle choices amongst Australia’s children.

The specific elements of Labor’s plan for a healthier and more active Australia will be detailed in the following presentations from my Labor colleagues.

Shadow Minister for Health, Julia Gillard will expand on Labor’s $10 million National Strategy to Reduce Childhood Obesity, and Senator Jacinta Collins, Shadow Minister for Children and Youth will address initiatives that promote the health of young people, and in particular school based initiatives.

Thankyou

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