Michelle has popped up in an article from yesterday’s Mercury, addressing the high rate of obesity amongst Tasmania’s children.

In the article, Michelle suggests one solution to this problem may be to institute “bootcamp” style workouts at the start of each school day.

“I’d love to see children do 30 minutes of exercise before class starts each day — that would be awesome,” Bridges said.

“Schools need to see the importance of exercise and encourage children to grow into healthy, active adults.”

Leaving aside the reluctance with which teachers would greet this proposition – would you want to teach a class of thirty sweaty, hyper kids each morning? – she is right that people need to stop turning a blind eye to the problem.

“We shouldn’t be kidding ourselves, we have to stop making excuses.”

She said fat adults were passing bad habits on to children, breeding whole families that were obese.

“Parents need to take control,” Bridges said.

“They’re the grown-ups, they’re the ones who should be setting the pace. They’ve got to set guidelines and be good role models.”

An idea which was reiterated in another article in today’s Mercury, where the Tasmanian Minister for Education, David Bartlett, says that the bootcamp idea is “too extreme”, but also…

He said parents needed to stop blaming schools for unfit children, and do more at home to encourage exercise and good eating habits.

“It’s a crowded curriculum and people in Tasmania, I believe, as my number one priority, want me to lift literacy and numeracy rates and that’s what we’re working hard on,” Mr Bartlett said.

He said more emphasis needed to be put on what happened at home.

Both sides make some good points. Mr Bartlett is correct in that parents need to take some responsibility for turning their children into pudgy nudfuhs. But at the same time that doesn’t excuse schools from attempting to educate children about health and fitness.

Is a “bootcamp” idea going too far? Probably, yes, but if you read what Michelle was actually suggesting, instead of simply freaking out at the “bootcamp” word, you’ll see that what she’s suggesting is really not so far away from what kids of my generation did on a regular basis. Various kinds of energetic exercise, done as a group activity, is a great way to get kids to be more active. Couple it with some instruction on healthy eating habits and maybe some practical lessons on preparing healthy, tasty, meals, and maybe the obesity epidemic would at least be slowed.

And if that doesn’t work, maybe the Government could mandate a real bootcamp for the parents of overweight children!

[Sources: School’s bootcamp and Bootcamp idea ‘too extreme’ both from the Mercury]