KEY POINTS:
Milo Tofilau, 14, remembers the moment when her life changed forever.
The Otara teen had been struggling to keep her weight under control.
Then three months ago the school nurse at Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate introduced her to a free programme to help overweight and obese children.
Milo signed up the very same day and in 10 weeks she lost 8kg, dropping from 118kg to 110kg.
She has also turned into a gym bunny, attending the gym at Otara Leisure Centre three to four times a week. "I have changed my life in a big way."
Milo is one of numerous success stories of the Kids in Action programme - part of the vanguard in the battle to keep the country's obesity epidemic at bay.
One in five New Zealand adults are obese, and one third of children between 5 and 14 years are overweight (21 per cent) or obese (10 per cent).
Since its modest beginnings in 2002 as a community programme run entirely by volunteers, Kids in Action has had more than 600 children and teens - and their families - pass through its doors. Today it is a funded programme run by the South Seas Healthcare Trust.
Based at the Otara Leisure Centre, the programme adopts an integrated approach to weight loss, meaning participants receive not just physical activity sessions, but nutrition advice and peer support too.
They are either self-referred, like Milo, or sent from public health nurses, GPs or hospitals.
Before they start, each child is assessed for any complications.
Dr Teuila Percival, a Kidz First hospital paediatrician with the programme, said some come to them already bearing the ill-effects of being overweight, such as pre-diabetes.
"We see teenagers who are 140kg to 150kg and then we're seeing 5-year-olds who are 45kg."
Some stay only for a term of 10 weeks, but the more serious cases stay longer.
Dr Percival said the programme has a 60 per cent success rate, judged by the children either maintaining or losing weight.
"What you're looking for in children, especially in the under 7-year-old age group, if they've got no complications, you want them to maintain their weight and let their height increase.
"If they're older, and they have complications, then we want them to actively lose weight."
One of the programme's fitness trainers, Shaun Tautali, said the programme took in around 60 to 75 referrals aged 5 to 17 each school term.
With the twice-weekly gym sessions and once-a-week swimming pool sessions, the kids receive social support.
Shortly before they finish, participants are introduced to community organisations which run sports activities or performing arts.
"We're following them up. We drop in to see them do their hip-hop, making sure they're doing okay. If they need support, they're more than welcome to come back."
Dr Percival said part of the programme's success was its inclusion of the families.
"The thing that makes a huge difference for children, that makes them able to lose weight, is having the family on board and doing the same thing."
Milo can attest to that. Her mum, who cooks for the family of six boys and three girls, took up the programme's nutrition advice. Each person now gets a piece of meat and plenty of vegetables.
The whole family, including aunties and uncles, are competing to see who can lose the most weight before Christmas.
