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Photo courtesy of The Daily Advertiser, Emma Horn
Weight Watches 'Kurbo' app launch prompts paediatric obesity warnings from Wagga-based dietitian Dianne Wintle
A free app targetting and monitoring the weight loss journey of children has been met with some concern from a Wagga-based dietitian.
Developed by Weight Watchers, the Kurbo app is aimed at children aged between eight and 17, and will soon be launched globally.
Having been a dietitian in the city for the better part of two decades, Dianne Wintle is in two minds about the proposed app.
"I'm not surprised Weight Watchers would be looking into something like this," she said.
"I don't think there's any bad intent on their behalf, childhood obesity is a problem and we're all searching for a way to combat that.
"[This approach] probably won't work out well for them, at least my hope is that it will disappear quickly enough."
What the app may lack in addressing the nuanced complexities of pediatric obesity however, Ms Wintle believes it opens up a valuable conversation.
"It gives us an opportunity to start talking about it, and what some alternative ways might be to promote a healthy lifestyle in young people," she said.
"If you're aware of what you're eating and how it's been made, then it's not necessary to be focusing on your weight, especially for children.
Nutrition, procrastination and making a change with Dianne Wintle
Podcast with Mark Aitken
Travelling the country for Nurse & Midwife Support, I meet many nurses and midwives who talk to me about food. A lot of our conversations centre on their love of food: they recommend places to go while I am in town, or offer tips for eating well while working - often I leave with better tips than I provide! I also hear a lot about how many nurses and midwives struggle with food. It can be a complex, even vulnerable, area for many people, often with multifaceted issues connected to it.
Our conversations led to an idea for a podcast about food and how we as nurses and midwives can improve our relationship with it. I was determined that it wouldn’t just be a chat reiterating the obvious ‘eat less and move more’ mantra. As health professionals, you already know that. Instead, we needed to talk about why we may struggle and how we can make change in a helpful way.
It all came together when we found the amazing Dianne Wintle. Dianne is an Accredited Practising Dietitian who generously discusses her own journey with food and weight loss, which led to a later-in-life career change to Dietetics, and why her research focused on how nurses’ feelings of stress and anxiety can manifest in their relationship with food.