Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition that affects children and adolescents globally and in Hong Kong. It's particularly troubling because the extra pounds often start children on the path to health problems that were once considered adult problems — diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Childhood obesity can also lead to poor self-esteem and depression. On the other hand, being underweight is an often-overlooked condition among school children, which is commonly attributable to malnutrition or underlying mental health conditions. One of the best strategies to manage weight control among children is to improve the eating and exercise habits of their entire family.

Our project aims to educate and promote weight control among Hong Kong school children.
1) We will invite participants to measure their height, weight, lifestyle habits, and other sociodemographic factors.
2) Doctors and Health Promotion workers will visit schools/online to give Community Talks on how to control weight via healthy diet and physical activity among children to their parents and teachers.
3) Students nominated by teachers will be trained to become peer mentors.
4) Short videos on weight control tailored for children of different ages to watch will be uploaded to an online health education platform of our Centre, GoSmart Channel (https://www.chep.cuhk.edu.hk/gosmart/).
5) Post-project tests will be conducted to measure the improvement health literacy of healthy lifestyle among the participants. 

The project will arouse public awareness and importance of weight control in school children and achieve early detection and interventions of childhood obesity and underweight. The targeted beneficiaries will be equipped with knowledge of childhood obesity and underweight. Be able to identify childhood obesity and underweight through assessments. Be able and willing to apply lifestyle and dietary modifications to control weight. We hope our project will not only help the improvement of children and the health quality of the school, but could also help to decrease the strain on the public health care system in the future.

• Primary School Students (Number: 300):By invitations among our previous networks of health education and promotion projects


• Secondary School Students (Number: 300): By invitations among our previous networks of health education and promotion projects


• Parents of Participants (Number: 600): By invitations


• School Teachers (Number: 50): By invitations among our previous networks of health education and promotion projects


• Public: By online platform and press release

2023

Education