The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has designated 1 June as “World Milk Day” to annually promote the importance and health benefits of drinking milk. To fortify parent’s awareness on their children’s dietary and exercise habits, and promote concerted efforts to improve local children’s health, the Centre for the Advancement of Social Sciences Research of Hong Kong Baptist University conducted a survey in April, commissioned by FrieslandCampina (Hong Kong) Ltd. 505 respondents aged 6 to 12 were interviewed about their dairy intake, individual and parent-child exercise habits, to assess the health status of local children and establish the “Hong Kong Children Health Index”.
The study congregated respondents’ milk, cheese and yogurt consumption behavior in the past week and found that 95% of the surveyed children consumed less dairy than is recommended by the Department of Health, while 13% of children did not consume any dairy products. One-third of the children surveyed did not have the habit of drinking milk; 60% of them had no habit of eating cheese or yogurt products, mainly due to the lack of provision by their family, the lack of such habits, and dislike of the taste of milk products. The survey also found that 68% of children exercise every day outside of physical education classes. The most common sport was running (50%), which far exceeded other sports such as ball games and dance. However, only 24% meet World Health Organization recommendation for children and youth aged 5-17 years – 60 minutes exercise every day. Additionally, the results showed that children felt happy when doing exercise with their parents. Although 61% of the children did exercised with their parents, over half (53%) mentioned that their parents only accompanied them in doing exercise once a month or even less than that.
Details of the survey:
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(May 31, 2016)