School programme for healthy bowels
The Southern District Health Board have launched a programme at New River Primary School to encourage children with healthy eating to prevent bowel cancer.
The programme aims to teach children about how to look after their bowels, and encourage older family members to take part in the National Bowel Screening Programme.
Children at the school were involved in activities that included identifying foods that were healthy and not healthy for the bowels, were taken through an inflatable bowel, and shown ways adults can check for healthy bowels.
The school programme is at pilot phase and if proven successful, it would be rolled out to other schools across Southland and Otago.
National Bowel Screening Programme communications consultant Emma Wood said New River Primary School was chosen for the pilot as a lowdecile school with a large proportion of Ma¯ ori and Pacific students, which the programme aimed to target.
Southern DHB Bowel Screening Programme clinical lead James Hill said having conversations with children would hopefully encourage older generations to participate in the programme for the benefits for the wha¯ nau rather than just an individual.
‘‘It is very important that we don’t narrow our focus to the bowel health of individuals aged 60 to 74; that is certainly not something that Ma¯ori and Pacific people do for example, they see health and bowel health as something of wider wha¯ nau involvement.’’
Hill thought it was important not to shy away from talking about cancer with children. He had a conversation with one of the children whose Nan had bowel cancer, and talked about what they can do to prevent it, Hill said.
Being in the classroom showed the importance of a message around a healthy diet, as lot of the children knew what cigarettes and alcohol were but did not know what a carrot or an aubergine was, he said.
The success of the pilot programme would be determined by measurable outcomes such as an increase in the participation rate of the National Bowel Cancer Programme but it was important not to get tied down in statistics, he said.
‘‘It is important not to underestimate the impact of one person affected by the programme.’’
The programme will also run at New River Primary School on August 22.