One of the country's leading efforts to instill healthy lifestyles into New Zealand children is widening its scope this year – looking for families to take part in long-term tracking to show the benefits.
Kim Harvey, founder of the Young and Healthy Trust which runs the Zespri Young and Healthy Virtual Adventure challenge in many New Zealand schools, says the event has already reached 105,000 primary school kids ("more when you take into account the ripple effect,") and will involve another 20,000 this year.
The virtual adventure sees children earn points for eating fruit and veges, being active, sleeping well, swapping leisure screen time for time outside and drinking more water.
They are encouraged by enjoying virtual rewards involving ASICS ambassadors Ardie Savea, Ameliaranne Ekenasio, Kane Williamson and Samantha Charlton – who appear as animated characters in videos to take the kids on a virtual tour of the globe, learning about the places they visit and imparting healthy tips.
"The kids create their own avatars which interact with the ASICS ambassadors – they just love seeing themselves," says Harvey.
Schools are now invited to apply for the adventure, which will begin on October 20, with registrations closing in late August. A special celebration took place on August 11 when Ekenasio visited Wellington's Avalon Intermediate school, armed with ASICS sports shoes for children.
"One of the things we often find in terms of a barrier is that some kids don't have the right shoes to support their growing feet, so partnering with ASICS has been a great help," says Harvey.
The trust is also looking for families keen to work with them to see how much the five-week challenge helps to embed healthy habits into ongoing daily life.
"This year we are looking for children who, with their families, will be involved in tracking longer term, so we can check in 6 or 12 months down the line and see how better sleep, less time on devices and more activity has become embedded in their habits."
"We've found over the years that, among other fabulous changes, 97 per cent of the kids involved become more active and 93 per cent drink more water. What we do is encourage the children to make a lot of small changes – but together they make a huge difference to mental and physical wellbeing."
Zespri Chief Executive Dan Mathieson says sponsor Zespri is looking forward to seeing more kids embrace the programme as it is extended to more locations this year: "We've been delighted with the reaction the programme has got. It's really pleasing to see its values connecting with kids across the country at such an important time in their lives."
Harvey says the feedback from schools is uniformly positive: "The kids love it. We are on a serious mission but we do it in a fun way, encouraging kids to make healthy choices and learn how much better they feel. When children are active, sleeping and eating as well as they can, they have more energy to concentrate and learn better in class and, if games are on offer, we proved their engagement goes up a notch.
"We know too that the ripple effect works. The adventure is a great activator, kids talk about it at home and the whole family ends up going out for a walk or kicking a ball round to help them meet their goals.
"Siblings get involved and so do kids from other classes who may not even be taking part in the adventure. Teachers share the most heartwarming stories, videos and photos and, if we can track families longer term, we should have an even better idea of how this is working."
Harvey began the programme in New Zealand in 2016 after kicking it off in Australia where it was picked up by the New South Wales health ministry and evaluated by the University of Sydney as having a raft of benefits to participants.
"I decided to bring the programme back home to New Zealand," Harvey says, adding she was also motivated by New Zealand's poor child health statistics. In June, a Deloitte report found lost production caused by physical inactivity cost the New Zealand economy $2.3 billion a year, and cost our health system $530m a year.
The report said the illusion was that New Zealand was a sporting country but the reality was that 93 per cent of teenagers and 48 per cent of adults did not hit global activity targets.
Meanwhile an Otago university research paper found more than a third of primary and secondary pupils did not clock up seven hours of exercise a week – the level labelled "sufficient" by international guidelines.
"We know that the first 10 years of life are so critical when it comes to ensuring children develop a love of being healthy and active," Harvey says. "Habits formed early in life are more likely to stick around for a lifetime and bolster an adult's overall wellbeing, so it's vital we give our kids the tools and knowledge for the best possible head start.
Registrations for the 2022 Virtual Adventure are open now, with school teachers encouraged to submit their class application via https://www.youngandhealthy.org.nz/. The Zespri Young and Healthy Virtual Adventure is a free programme thanks to the support of partners and will run for five weeks from October 20 until November 24.