Thinking New Zealand may be a great place to raise kids? Think again if you value their health.

‘Shocking’ obesity rate among kids    

New Zealand’s lack of commitment to childhood obesity prevention programmes and policies is failing a generation of children, an obesity expert says.

Figures released by the Ministry of Health show that 10,000 more New Zealand children are now classified as overweight or obese compared to last year.

“Our rising rate of overweight and obesity to almost one in three children is shocking compared to Australia’s rate where it appears to have plateaued out at about one in four,” Auckland University’s Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health Boyd Swinburn says…

The continued upward trend compared unfavourably with many OECD countries, including even the United States, where overweight and obesity among children is either flattening or decreasing…”

Healthy food is expensive in New Zealand, which has one of the world’s greatest per capita fast food joints. It’s cheaper for kids to drink fizzy sodas than milk.

For more about children’s issues in New Zealand consult our Wiki page