There has been a rising prevalence of childhood obesity worldwide, but Kiwi four year olds seem to be resisting this trend.

According to an article in the Otago Daily Times, “Researchers have trawled national data and found a slight decline in the rate of overweight or obese children of that age group … They found that there had been a 2.2% decline in the number of youngsters who were overweight, obese or extremely obese between 2010 and 2016.”

That’s great news for New Zealand and here at Auckland Kindergarten Association we plan to keep doing our part to encourage our tamariki to grow up healthy and happy.

All of the kindergartens at AKA promote healthy eating both at the kindergarten and at home. Parents and whānau are encouraged to pack healthy food/kai for their children.

 

 

We believe that teaching our tamariki good eating habits at a young age will help them to go on to lead healthy and successful lives and decrease their risk of diseases linked to obesity such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some forms of cancer.

Some of our kindergartens have been awarded Healthy Heart Awards by the Heart Foundation, including;

…and several more are well on their way to achieving this goal! You can find out more about Healthy Hearts and Healthy Heart Awards here.