Dr Daniel McCartney: Exercise key to Ireland's battle with the bulge
A quarter of our children are overweight or obese, and these figures are rising, year on year.
So, how did this happen and are commercial dieting and calorie-restriction the answers?
Our diet is critical; but it’s only part of the answer.
While it’s fine to focus on this side of the energy equation, and to rightly highlight the secular changes in food and drink that have contributed to our obesity epidemic, as a nation we’re paying far too little attention to the other half — energy expenditure.
In a WHO study, from Jul 2012, Ireland had the seventh-lowest physical activity levels out of 36 countries. Half of the Irish adults in this study said that they didn’t achieve the recommended weekly activity guideline (5 x 30-minute episodes of moderate intensity activity (for example, walking), or 3 x 20-minute bursts of vigorous activity, or a combination of the two). Yet very little is ever said about this.
If you endlessly restrict food intake, without increasing energy expenditure (exercise), you’re not only less likely to achieve sustainable weight loss, you’re also much more likely to encounter problems with micro-nutrient inadequacy.
In other words, you can eat so little that you become deficient in one or more of the vitamins and minerals that are critical to health.
While professional dietitians are trained to be mindful of these pitfalls, and to customise their patients’ diets to avoid them, this may not be the case with many other practitioners in the weight-loss industry.
So, as a rule, if you’re attempting to lose weight, it’s important that the diet you choose is recommended by a practitioner who is sufficiently trained to ensure you get a nutritionally adequate, balanced plan that achieves this weight loss in a safe and healthy way.
The trouble for the consumer is trying to distinguish truth from fiction — to separate the charlatans from the bona fide professionals and reputable companies that operate in this space. This isn’t easy, but tightened regulation is now making its way through the Oireachtas, whereby only those with a recognised degree in dietetics will be entitled to refer to themselves as dietitians.
However, this is only part of the solution.
It’s time that we begin to critically examine how we inform ourselves, and our children, about health.
Whether this means amendment of school and college curricula, work-based health-promotion initiatives, public-information campaigns or stronger public-health policy development, the goal should be to educate people to make genuinely healthier dietary and lifestyle choices.
It’s this health literacy that will allow people to become more discerning about what’s on offer from the diet industry, and which will ultimately lead them to improved health outcomes.
* Dr Daniel McCartney, Lecturer in Human Nutrition & Dietetics at DIT
