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Breaking stories
Check children’s weight regularly ‘like eyesight’
Children’s weight, like their eyesight, should be checked regularly, a nutrition expert has told the joint committee on health and children.
By Evelyn Ring
Safefood’s director of human health and nutrition, Dr Cliodhna Foley Nolan, said parents did not find it easy to accept that their child was overweight or obese. “We need to ‘normalise’ the taking of weight and waistline measurements so it is not seen as criticism or an insult. It should be the same as getting their eyes checked.”
Dr Foley Nolan said Safefood-funded community and pre-school programmes were conditioning parents so they were health aware and, eventually, at a point were they were comfortable with having their children screened.
Senator John Crown asked if fear of causing eating disorders was making people shy away from the issue of addressing children’s weight.
Dr Foley Nolan said the fear about triggering eating disorders, especially in teenage girls, had been overstated.
However, Safefood was ensuring that all information it provided on healthy eating was both constructive and positive.
“We know that we are getting the message out there — that there is a better lifestyle choice but it is a slow burn,” she said.
“That is why we need all the encouragement and support we can get from you [the committee], in terms of policies and funding.”
Sen Crown, who is a doctor and practices cancer medicine, said obesity was one of the risk factors for a number of cancers.
“And, surprisingly, if you have cancer, the chances that you do better in treatment is higher if you are not obese.
“It could be argued that, after smoking, it is perhaps the second biggest risk factor that our population is facing right now in terms of cancer.”
Sen Crown said there was no food that was dangerous when eaten in moderation, just as there was no food that was safe when eaten in excess.
“Simply banning certain foods won’t work.
“You have got to get the message across to people that it is the total volume and number of calories and the efficiency with which you absorb that food that makes the difference.”
Meanwhile, an international conference in Dublin to mark the 10th anniversary of the European Food Safety Authority heard that counterfeit food was likely to become an increasing concern in the future.
Chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Prof Alan Reilly, said the European regulatory agencies needed to be alert to emerging health risks, because of the free movement of foods across borders and the potential threat from food fraud.
He warned that the food fraud could sometimes pose a very serious health risk: “Tragically, this was the case in the Czech Republic recently where alcoholic products were unscrupulously contaminated with methanol, resulting in a number of deaths.”
He said there needed to be a high level of co-ordination among regulators and enforcement agencies.
Fat facts
* One in four children and two in three adults are carrying excess weight.
* Children who are obese are likely to remain obese through to adulthood.
* Growing evidence that many parents are failing to identify themselves or their children as overweight or obese.