The role of Nutrition and Physical Activity in the Obesity Epidemic

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Parental support for Physical activity

In the survey questionnaire, students were asked to rate parental support for physical activity. Two items were included in the OPIC survey to assess physical activity influencers. Students responded to the following questions, “How much does your mother (or female caregiver) encourage you to be physically active or play sports?” And likewise, the question was repeated for “father (or male caregiver)”. Five possible responses were presented: 1. A lot; 2. Some; 3. A little; 4. Not at all; 5. Don’t live with my mother (or father). Most students chose option number one “A lot” to describe parental support for physical activity. 141 Table 4.8 summaries the analysis completed for the total sample of obese and healthy weight students (n=2740) compared to the sample of obese and healthy weight Pacific students only (n=1518). There was one difference found between the two samples, with parental support rated higher by obese Pacific students, while in the total student sample, healthy weight students rated parental support higher (Figure 4.17).

The nature of parental influence on students‟ physical activity

In most cases, the student initiates their activity through the opportunities provided by the school (usually beginning at primary school) and in some cases, from the encouragement of school team coaches or teachers. A few parents initiated children‟s physical activity from a young age by registering them into structured sports competitions because they believed sporting activities can provide many benefits for their children. As discussed previously, parents valued physical activity mainly because it was good for the health of their children, but also because it them busy and “kept them off the street”, it was good for increasing children‟s self-esteem, self-confidence and giving them a “competitive edge”. In addition, parents who valued physical activity and enjoyed physical activity through previous and or current experience, made strong investments in their children‟s sporting activities, by providing not only resources and transport for sports activities, but were also actively involved by being coaches, managers and sports club members of their children‟s sports teams. The following discussion highlights a mother‟s and father‟s sporting socialisation process on their children.

Parental support by student weight status

All students bar one, (32 out of 33) regardless of weight status, indicated that they had always been active as children, participating in structured school sports in primary and intermediate schools. Students indicated that their parents were key influencers of this historical physical activity, and supported them in a number of ways: initiating their sports participation by actively signing them into new sports, by attending games to give support, by transporting them to games and paying for sports fees and by telling them to “go for it”. Some students initiated their own participation, but always with the consent of parents and often with older siblings and or other extended family members, like older cousins, who acted as secondary support and role models. As younger children, no child was actively discouraged by parents from being physically active.

Parental gendered expectations

However, physical activity support was not always equally distributed by parents towards sons and daughters. Some parents had gendered expectations, with boys getting more parental support for sporting activities, while some girls were actively discouraged with more expectation for them to focus on school work rather than sports. In addition, some parents talked about girls‟ sporting activities requiring more parental supervision than boys and sporting schedules that meant girls walking home in the dark by themselves was potentially unsafe for them. Neighbourhood safety was often cited by parents as a key factor in discouraging physical activity especially for their daughters, as highlighted by a mother‟s account below. “Yeah, sometimes I stop her (daughter/student) from going and join those basketball and something like that, its just because she comes back, they are having exercises after school and then when I come back home from work and she is not home and then I get worried and I go back there [to school] to look for her.

READ Haemoglobin and met-haemoglobin as endogenous toxins

Body Image and Ethnicity

During qualitative interviews, students and parents were asked whether they believed and expected different ethnic groups to have differing body types and sizes and body weight ideals. (i.e. „What do you believe is the ideal or acceptable body weight, for all Samoan girls of your age?‟ „Are there some differences in ideal body weight between different ethnic groups e.g., Palagi, Samoan, Tongan, Maori etc. Yes, no, why?‟ „Do you think that idealised weight is healthy?‟) Most students (21 out of 33 – 64%) believed and had expectations for all ethnic groups to be of the same body size. As highlighted by the comment below, students believed all ethnic groups should have the same body sizes, and expected both Pacific and non-Pacific people to be of a range of sizes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS :

Abstract
Acknowledgements
Table of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of abbreviations
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
- Obesity in New Zealand
- Research aim & objectives
- Research design
Chapter outline
CHAPTER 2 – REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON OBESITY
- Defining Obesity
- Measuring Childhood Obesity
- Generalisability of obesity standards across ethnic groups
- Obesity Prevalence in Pacific groups
- Trends in Obesity Prevalence
- Health consequences of obesity
- Causes of Obesity
- The role of Nutrition and Physical Activity in the Obesity Epidemic
- Patterns of nutritional intake and behaviours of Pacific groups in New Zealand
- Physical activity patterns of Pacific groups in New Zealand
- The role of Environmental factors in the Obesity Epidemic
- Macro-environmental analysis of obesity aetiology
- Empirically defined environmental factors that may protect or promote obesity
- The role of socio-cultural factors in the obesity epidemic
- Socio-economic status and obesity
  - Social norms, attitudes, values or beliefs about food and eating
  - Social norms or cultural customs, attitudes, values or beliefs about physical activity
  - Social norms, attitudes, values or beliefs about body image
- A critique of body image research
- Research methodology review
- An alternative research strategy
- Obesity Intervention Studies
CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY & ANALYSIS
- Research Paradigm
  - Qualitative versus Quantitative research inquiry – the choice of paradigm
- The strengths of Qualitative and Quantitative Research
- Overall Design
- Research Methodologies: Why choose a qualitative approach?
- Mixed-Methodology Approach
- Theoretical Framework
- Research Objectives
- Ethical review
- Sample
  - Qualitative interviews
  - Quantitative survey
- Procedures
  - Qualitative interviews
  - Quantitative survey
- Analysis
- Information Dissemination
- Detailed Sample Profile
CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS
- FOOD HABITS
- Research objectives
- Interview and Survey questions
- Overview of Food Habits findings
  - Food supply and Preparation
  - Food Supply
  - Food preparation
  - Food consumption patterns
- Typical household meals
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Main meal
- Food practices at special occasions
- Food preferences
- Eating more or less
  - Food knowledge & influencers
  - Food knowledge
  - Food and eating influencers
- Parental support for healthy eating
- Influencers on parents eating habits
- Food context
- Summary
CHAPTER 5 – DISCUSSION
CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS