Dietician: No services to tackle childhood obesity

Clinical dieticians say community-based childhood obesity services are either rare or non-existent.

The Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute said almost three quarters of the country does not have access to a childhood obesity prevention programme.

It added that 88% of the country does not have access to a group intervention programme for obese children.

INDI president Richelle Flanagan said the Government needed to tackle childhood obesity as a matter of urgency.

Ms Flanagan said the Department of Health and Children regularly highlighted the ever-increasing rise of childhood obesity — but had no plan to tackle it.

She said 6% of three-year-olds were already obese, a situation she described as “very scary”.

“Obesity has been increasing at 1% per year since the 1990s,” she said. “Our population has remained relatively static so it is really our environment that is causing that increase.”

Ms Flanagan said Ireland’s “very poor” breastfeeding rate and the tendency of some parents to introducing babies to high-fat foods from four months were adding to the problem.

Consultant paediatrician Sinead Murphy said childhood obesity had reached epidemic proportions in Europe and that body weight was now the most prevalent childhood disease.

“The Irish Government has no choice but to work to prevent and treat this disease and tackle the toxic environment that simultaneously restricts activity and stimulates higher calorie intake,” said Dr Murphy.

The Department of Health and Children said the problem was a priority for Health Minister James Reilly, who had established an action group to address the issue.

The department said it was recognised that no single initiative would reverse the problem but a combination of measures should make a difference.

It said the action group was in talks with the HSE on opportunistic screening and monitoring to improve the identification of overweight children at an earlier age and prevent them from progressing into obesity.