Fitness guru floats pontoon plan to help combat obesity

A FITNESS industry leader says Tasmania needs to do far more to tackle its childhood obesity crisis and is calling for more councils to look at installing pontoons at their local beaches.

Almost 30 per cent of children aged two to 17 years were either overweight or obese during the last national health survey and Oceana Health and Fitness managing director Dean Ewington said the figure would only have risen.

“We have this childhood obesity crisis which has been unfolding before our eyes for the last 20 years. We now have the first generation which has a lower life expectancy than the previous one,” he said.

“That should not happen, that’s not good enough.”

Mr Ewington is a former president of the Tasmanian branch of Fitness Australia and was a member of the Premier’s Physical Activity Council before quitting in frustration at “half-baked” solutions to growing health problems.

He said the key was getting 10 to 18-year-olds outdoors and the use of pontoons had proven to be a way of doing this.

“You look at what happens in other areas around Hobart, they just come in like flies,” he said.

“From a water safety perspective, we have kids that are struggling just swimming.

“The technology is getting better, so we need to figure out better ways of getting these kids outside and active.”

Mr Ewington has offered for Oceana to sponsor the installation of a pontoon at Bellerive Beach — which would cost about $14,000 to buy.

He said Bellerive shouldn’t be the only location looked at.

Mr Ewington’s call comes as the popular Kingston Beach pontoon was reinstalled this week after it was dislodged by a strong storm this month.