'Our diet is the issue'; Expert calls for no-fry zones and tough laws to tackle obesity

Public health expert, Dr Margaret Steele, called for more focus on prevention rather than targeting individuals for their own weight. Picture: Cian O'Regan

Obesity should be tackled with social change including no-fry zones and legislation around ingredients in food, a University College Cork expert has said.

Public health researcher, Dr Margaret Steele, claims the food environment can make it extremely challenging for people to eat well.

“The problem is not that people are heavier, the problem is we are eating diets that don’t help us stay healthy, and make it really difficult to stay healthy,” she said.

“And in some cases that might make people heavier, or in some cases it might give them diseases, but it is the diet that is the issue. It is the food environment and food system that we need to look at.” 

She called for more focus on prevention rather than targeting individuals for their own weight.

“The big picture at a population level is we need to be looking at prevention as well,” she said. “It is happening a lot more, the Government has been looking at it in recent years and clinical doctors, public health experts have been look at it a lot more. But we haven’t quite got to a stage where we are doing all that needs to be done—in the way we have with tobacco.” 

There is a “voluntary code of conduct around marketing unhealthy food to children,” she said, but what is needed is “legislation with teeth”—particularly around processed foods.

“You’ve got this environment which makes it very difficult for people not to get into the habit of eating high-fat, salt, sugar goods or ultra-processed foods,” she said.

Dr Margaret Steele: “You’ve got this environment which makes it very difficult for people not to get into the habit of eating high-fat, salt, sugar goods or ultra-processed foods.” Picture: Cian O'Regan

“Then we say ‘oh let’s measure your BMI, oh you need to lose weight’ but it’s too late then at that stage.” 

Another area which Government could support is the affordability and access to healthier foods, she suggested.

“There is no point having kids coming into schools and telling them they have to eat lots of fruit and vegetables and they should walk everywhere, but then you are sending them back out into a neighbourhood where there is very little public transport or its not safe to walk around because there are cars everywhere,” she said. 

“You might need a car to get to the local supermarket but you can get to the chipper (on foot).” 

Ozempic

Dr Steele, and her co-author of the research published this week about attitudes to obesity, are also concerned about what the recent shortage of a drug used to treat diabetes—and also now being used for obesity—revealed.

Professor Francis Finucane, consultant endocrinologist with Galway University Hospitals, said recent Irish Medical Council guidance against prescribing Ozempic (containing semaglutide) for obesity is “morally problematic”.

“Semaglutide is approved as a treatment for obesity, just as it is for diabetes,” he said. “There is a deeply stigmatising idea out there that people with obesity are looking for an easy way out, that these medicines provide a low-effort alternative to healthy diet and lifestyle.” 

He added: “But for people living with the disease of obesity, these drugs don’t make behavioural change unnecessary, nor do they make it easy—they just make it possible.”

The UCC study can be read on Obesity Reviews.