School teaches girls to lose weight

By REBECCA WALSH health reporter

One day last year Marie Chu-Shing walked into the McAuley High School health centre and asked for information about healthy eating.

She was 13, overweight and knew she ate too many fatty foods. She also worried about her fitness - or lack of it.

"Sometimes I wouldn't want to do any sports because I couldn't run as fast as the other girls in my class," she says.

"I wanted to do exercise with someone - not by myself."

She wasn't the only one to ask for help and that started nurses Beverley O'Loughlin and Phillipa Bennetts thinking.

They knew there were more girls like Marie. Some had high blood pressure and diabetes. Many were unhappy with their bodies and wanted to change but weren't sure how to.

Soon the "Young and Active" programme was conceived. It covered eating habits, nutrition and exercise and gave students the opportunity to try new foods.

Megan Hilikehetule, 14, discovered hummus and liked it, but the experience also raised practical issues.

As Theresa Manu, also 14, puts it: "It was hard. We learned about healthy foods but there was none of it at home. I told my parents to buy it. I just left a note and came home from school and it was in the fridge."

Mrs Bennetts said the 650-student school in Otahuhu was already part of the Government-funded AIMHI (achievement in multi-cultural schools) programme, which aims to integrate health and social services.

But crucial to the Young and Active programme's ongoing success was giving students the opportunity to take responsibility for themselves.

Marie, who is Samoan-Chinese, now goes grocery shopping with her grandmother and chooses fillings for her sandwiches - lettuce, tomatoes, luncheon - instead of sausage rolls and pies.

She also walks every day after school with her sister.

Her weight has fluctuated but she feels healthier, fitter and more confident. She plans to do commercial law at university.

And now she can keep up with her classmates during sport.

Student initiative

* Students set goals about what they want to achieve, for example feeling fitter and losing weight.

* They are given information about healthy food and exercise choices and work out a food plan based around eating six times a day. Most of the girls used to buy a pie and soft drink for breakfast; now they eat cereal and fruit. After-school snacks of fatty leftovers have been replaced with crackers and smoothies.

* Twice a week they take part in 1 1/2-hour exercise sessions at school, including walking, swimming, netball and kickboxing. They are encouraged to exercise outside school as well.

* The girls record the amount of exercise they do in minutes a day in a log book.