Healthy bowel habits of schoolchildren in Eastern District

The habit of preferring animal foods is always developed in school age children. Dietary fibre intake has been shown to be markedly deficient in a number of Hong Kong children. Our three-year "Healthy bowel habits program" aims to reduce the extension of common functional constipation in school age children to adolescents. The program objective has three main goals a) targeting children's and families' understanding of what constipation is, its risk factors and preventive methods; (b) increasing schoolchildren's consumption of dietary fibre such as fruits and vegetables; and (c) ensuring that schoolchildren have daily regular sporting activity and toilet training. The program has three parts: Part I - Literature review of the bowel health problem regarding bowel habit issues of children in Hong Kong and worldwide; Part II - Assessment of the Hong Kong community, planning strategies, presenting program implementation methods and evaluation methods in the community. Part III - Discussion and conclusion of the program. This program emphasizes the intake of dietary fibre by school age children to prevent childhood constipation. Hong Kong lacks health education programs for the child population but our proposal is limited by data shortage to explain teenagers' fibre intake condition. Above all, dietary fibre intake should be an important issue in promotion of children's health.