Researcher connects children's health, nutrition and obesity

Sarah Woodruff is concerned about what some call an epidemic of childhood obesity.

 

However, the kinesiology professor disagrees with those who jump to the conclusion that every child who is overweight isn’t healthy.

 

“I think people can be healthy at any size,” said Woodruff, whose research program focuses on the complex relationships between health, nutrition behaviour and physical activity. “You can have an overweight child who eats healthy and is physically active. It might just be genetics working against them. Not everyone can be skinny. When children try too hard to be skinny, that’s when they end up having health problems.”

 

That’s not to suggest, however, that she doesn’t believe there are a significant number of children out there whose weight issues are attributable to poor nutrition and a lack of physical activity. She just doesn’t know how many, which explains why she’s launching an ambitious new survey to get a better sense of the nutrition and health levels of children in Windsor and Essex County. It provides another example of how the University is working to improve the community as part of its strategic plan.

 

Beginning this fall, Woodruff will team up with Faculty of Nursing researchers Katherine Fryer and Mary Cole, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, the Bulimia and Anorexia-Nervosa Association (BANA) and a variety of graduate and undergraduate students to conduct a nutrition and physical activity survey of about 900 seventh grade students at 30 local schools.

 

The 30-40 minute survey will give researchers data about the student’s diet, physical activity and health behaviour, while the nurses will measure their height, weight, blood pressure and waist sizes. The survey will include questions about how often they eat breakfast, whether they consume fruits and vegetables, how often they eat fast food or from convenience stores and vending machines, with whom they eat their meals, their involvement in organized sports, if they play active video games and their sleep behaviour.

 

“There’s actually very little local data that would show us what’s going on in Windsor-Essex,” she said, “so we’re really excited to be doing this. Without that local data it makes it very difficult to plan for any kind of health promotion. And the timing of it is perfect.”

 

Ontario’s provincial government has banned the sale of junk food in schools beginning in the fall of 2011, so the survey will give researchers a base line of data before the ban goes into effect. It will also allow them to go back several years from now, survey another sample of seventh graders and measure whether children are getting any healthier as a result of that ban.

 

In addition, Woodruff, along with colleagues from the University of Waterloo and Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, is using a data set from Statistics Canada to develop a healthy eating index that would provide a snapshot of how closely Canadians are following the Canada Food Guide. The index would result in an easy-to-use composite score that would help people determine if they’re getting the right amount of nutrients.

 

Instead of looking at each nutrient individually, we’re trying to put the whole diet together in a complete picture,” she said.

 

A certified exercise physiologist, she’s also working with the Lancer women’s varsity volleyball team conducting a study to determine whether players are consuming enough calories for the energy they expend. Players are required to fill out food logs and wear armbands that record the amount of energy they exert over a 24-hour period.

 

“We need to make sure they’re eating enough of the right types of food for their athletic performance,” she said.

 

The common goal of all these projects, she said, is to provide some empirical evidence that will help create a more balanced awareness among average Canadians about what it really means to be healthy.

 

“Health promotion strategies have to focus on healthy behaviour rather than just weight,” she said. “Weight shouldn’t be the main focus. It’s physical activity and nutrition behaviour that we should be focusing on.”