Childhood obesity is among the country’s top health concerns and a University of Victoria researcher is attacking the issue one family kitchen at a time.
David Trill, a master’s candidate in the school of exercise science, physical and health education at UVic, is studying child health through eating activities and is currently seeking a second round of participants to complete his home-based research project.
After 40 pairs of parents and children participants, Trill needs 30 more pairs, each with a child aged nine to 13-years-old. The program requires one in-person orientation and roughly one hour of homework each week, for which families are given a take-home tool kit, including the Canada Food Guide and a recipe booklet.
Trill has recently partnered with the London Chef cooking school downtown to offer a complimentary cooking skills workshop for families who participate.
“Parents are sometimes a little lazy getting their kids in the kitchen,” Trill said. “I wanted to be as flexible and as accommodating to the families as possible, sort of like a weekly cooking session with you and your kids for eight weeks.”
For research purposes, Trill only requires one child to participate from each family, but he encourages larger families to involve everyone in the process.
The project is intended to promote, educate and celebrate good healthy food for children and their parents, as well as share sensible choices and strategies towards healthy eating. It is not intended to single out overweight kids or families with unhealthy eating habits, he added.
“This is a fantastic new avenue because it lets go of the school and gets them right at the home which is a potent dose – an intervention.”
Contact Trill at dtrill@uvic.ca or 250-853-3141 for more information.
nnorth@saanichnews.com
