Regular weighing can help beat obesity

Regular weighing could tip the scales in favour of a campaign to fight obesity.

The weighing scales must become part of our lives again, television medical experts told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.

Dr Eva Orsmond said children should be weighed each year at school and the public, in general, at each GP or hospital visit.

“We need to become aware of our weight and our children’s weight,” said Dr Orsmond, one of the panellists from RTÉ’s Operation Transformation series.

The experts, and other participants from the current series, were invited by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children to discuss the country’s obesity problem.

In a bid to transform the health and fitness of the nation, they presented a seven-point plan.

In addition to regular use of weighing scales, they advised parents should get to know how much exercise children need on a daily basis and, furthermore, students should be given cooking lessons at school.

The plan also calls for the appointment of an extra 100 physical education teachers, to be employed in primary schools, and for physical education to be taken seriously at second level with Leaving Cert points awarded for the subjected.

The inclusion of the calorie content of food and drinks beside the price on menu boards and for high-sugar confectionery and drinks to be replaced by fruit at the checkout in shops and supermarkets were also ideas put forward.

Dr Orsmond said a reduction of 10% of those with lifestyle-related diabetes could save the State €145m yearly.

“I have patients whose medication costs the State €400 a month. Once they lose the weight their medication costs are reduced to €15 or €20,” she said.

She further claimed statins used to reduce cholesterol levels were “prescribed like sweets”.

She said the fact Ireland had a long waiting list for bariatric surgery was a sign of a very sick society. “That means that we are again treating the symptom and not the cause,” she said.

Fitness expert Karl Henry said Operation Transformation had proven the show’s seven-step plan worked. “We have started the process, but the ball is now in your court to legislate and to get those simple messages out there,” he told Oireachtas members.

Psychologist Dr Eddie Murphy said they were conscious a plan to tackle the country’s obesity crisis might impact on some commercial interests but protecting the citizens of Ireland should be the priority of politicians.

“We don’t want to be saying, on Operation Transformation in five year’s time, we are the fattest in Europe. Knowledge is power — power to change. All we want is to give our people a chance,” he said.

An Operation Transformation leader, Gregg Starr from Co Tipperary, said a doctor who examined him had advised cholesterol reducing medication. “In four weeks, just through diet alone, I turned it around,” he said.