uSedentarism, unhealthy eating habits and lack of physical exercise among school children represent a worrying problem which has arisen due mainly to the fact that in the past years technology has pushed children indoors. This aspect, doubled by the fact that parents are now too busy to cater for their children’s eating habits have increased the numbers of obesity cases among adolescents. In addition to causing various physical disabilities and psychological problems, excess weight drastically increases a person’s risk of developing a number of communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc.
uIn order to make an initial analysis of the situation, we have applied a questionnaire in our schools. The survey indicates that well over 60% of parents spend little or no time cooking healthy meals to their children because of their hectic schedule. As well as this, 70% of our children declared spending more than 2 hours a day on their mobile phone and less than 1 hour of their free time per week doing physical effort. This may explain why we have the following percentages of obesity/overweight: EST – 15, BG – 38, ES – 25, PL – 30, TR – 20.
uThrough this project, we are addressing both students and parents with the aim of raising their awareness about the problems of obesity and sedentarism. This is why we want to develop activities which tackle the following aspects:
u1. Obesity – causes and effects on the short, medium and long term
u2. How to have a balanced diet – nutrients our body needs to stay healthy, foods to avoid and how to build a personalized eating programme
u3. Sports that can be performed in small groups
u4. Hiking and outdoor activities
uWe decided to make this initiative transnational as we want to observe how schools tackle the issue of children spending too much time indoors and find common solutions to solve the problems of sedentarism and obesity.
uThe project addresses three target groups
u1. students aged 5-13, students with weight problems as well as regular students.
u2. parents – we will inform them about the project development and involve them in the local activities so as to raise their awareness about the importance of healthy diet for their children’s development. We want parents to join our activities, to observe their children in interaction, to see how happy they are and to determine them to continue this way of living at home, to involve their children in outdoor activities as much as possible.
u3. teachers who will participate in exchanges. They will be able to exchange experiences, to analyse the similarities, differences, identify good practices and apply them in their own schools.
uIn order to ensure a bigger impact at the end of the project, we aim to produce a brochure for parents and students which will be translated in all the 5 languages of the project partners, plus English and a brochure for schools to share the results and findings and encourage other schools to apply the activities.