A NEW study to investigate the wellbeing, diet and exercise levels of school children in Cork will be the most detailed of its kind in Ireland to date.
The study of 1,000 children from third and fourth classes in primary schools in Cork city and county, which starts on Monday, April 16th, is being funded by the national children’s research centre in Crumlin.
The project is being led by Prof Ivan Perry and Janas Harrington from the department of epidemiology and public health in University College Cork.
Children and parents will be given a health and lifestyle questionnaire to fill out, and children will be asked to keep a photograph diary of what they eat over three days.
“Physical activity will be monitored over seven days using a wrist-worn watch-like device which will record activity every 10 seconds. We will measure the height, weight and blood pressure of the children. This is the first time such a study has been done on this scale in Ireland, and it should give us a better understanding of the dietary and activity habits of Irish nine year olds,” said Ms Harrington.
Figures from previous studies have found that over one in four (26 per cent) of Irish nine year olds are either overweight or obese. The Cork study aims to determine the magnitude of the increase in childhood obesity in this age group between 2002 and 2012.
Ms Harrington said: “The findings of this study will allow us to estimate the gap between energy consumed [as food] and energy expended [as physical activity]. This ‘energy gap’ will help us to identify the magnitude of the obesity problem. Accurate estimates of the changes in childhood obesity over time are necessary to help develop appropriate measures to tackle the problem of childhood obesity.”
She said it was anticipated that the results of this study would highlight areas of action for policymakers, planners and developers with responsibility for addressing childhood obesity and creating sustainable healthy environments.
Further information about the study is available at nationalchildrensresearchcentre.ie/project/view/35
