Government ‘must face up to obesity timebomb’

THE problem of childhood obesity is a “timebomb” that has yet to be faced up to, the Minister for Children has warned.

Frances Fitzgerald said the Government needs to move away from the provision of treating illness to promoting health and preventing the onset and progression of obesity among three-year-olds.

Ms Fitzgerald was responding to the preliminary findings of research from a Government-funded national study of children, Growing Up In Ireland, which found that 25% of three-year-olds are overweight or obese.

“I really don’t think we have yet faced up to the health timebomb, which, if left unchecked, will be coming down the tracks very fast,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“While it is impossible to put a monetary value on one’s health, it very easy to put a cost on ill-health. As a state we simply cannot afford the future costs of healthcare that will flow if we do not seek to address the challenges posed by childhood obesity.”

There are 327,000 children described as overweight, who cost the health service an estimated at €4 billion per year.

Recent results from the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative, in which Ireland participated, showed that 13% of seven-year-old boys were overweight and a further 5% obese, while 19% of girls were overweight with a further 7% obese.

According to the survey, childhood obesity is linked to underachievement in school, as well as to lower self-esteem. More than 60% of children who are overweight before puberty will be overweight in early adulthood.

Nutrition consultant Lynda McFarland said Ireland has experienced a shift to convenience foods in the past 20 years and said this reliance on convenience foods and ready meals is contributing to childhood obesity.

“Parents need to look at their food as a medicine to prevent long-term obesity” she said. “It’s about re-education and investing in good quality food.”

Ms McFarland encouraged parents to live by the advice of the “father of medicine”, Hippocrates: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

Former Olympic athlete and head of the Sports Council, John Treacy, has called for the government to get involved and tackle the obesity issue.

Mr Treacy, who formally chaired the National Taskforce on Obesity, said the Government could put pressure on the food and drinks industry to package food for young people differently and to reduce portion sizes.

Research by the Irish Universities’ Nutrition Alliance has found that a large percentage of Irish children are consuming far too many foods and drinks from the “top shelf” of the food pyramid: cakes, biscuits, chocolate, crisps and other high-fat snack foods.

The food pyramid provides balanced nutritional information to assist people in making healthier choices when it comes to their eating habits. Nutritional experts say this information needs to be incorporated into children’s eating patterns. The food pyramid gives parents advice on how children’s daily intake of food should be apportioned.

Health experts have predicted a surge in the obesity rate among Irish children, and called on the food and drink industry to take responsibility.

The Department of Health has established a Special Action Group on Obesity, which intends to focus on the feasibility of calorie posting on fast-food menus in Ireland, a measure which has already been introduced in the United States.

Fast-food outlets in Ireland are giving nutritional and calorie information online. However, the public display of the information is not mandatory.

Obesity contributes to a number of illnesses, including hypertension, type-2 diabetes, excess cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease, including stroke. It can also cause breathing problems such as asthma.