Govt criticised for lack of action on obesity

DANGERS OF BEING OBESE: Obesity is linked to a range of chronic health conditions, including type-2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, respiratory problems and osteoarthritis.

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Government silence on the country's biggest health problem will leave hospitals "overflowing" with the chronically ill, obesity experts say.

An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report released last year ranked New Zealand as the third most obese nation in the world, with an obesity rate of 26.5 per cent.

Obesity is linked to a range of chronic health conditions, including type-2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, respiratory problems and osteoarthritis.

Experts believed obesity was the biggest health problem facing the nation, with a cost to the health system estimated at $500 million a year.

Last year, Health Minister Tony Ryall dropped nutrition and physical activity from the Government's health targets.

The Government has also axed funding for the Obesity Action Coalition, Healthy Eating Healthy Action regional co-ordinators and the healthy food in schools programme.

A health committee inquiry into obesity and type-2 diabetes in 2007 said the obesity epidemic threatened to overwhelm the health system without a concerted government-led response.

Recommendations included restrictions on advertising, improving health promotion and changing food labelling.

The National Government has ruled out a tax on fatty foods, or regulating food advertising.

Fight the Obesity Epidemic spokeswoman Dr Robyn Toomath said the Government had barely acknowledged obesity as an issue. It had increased funding for Kiwisport in schools, but there was no evidence that participation in sport affected obesity levels.

Widespread discrimination against obese people meant there was no public outcry that nothing was being done. "It must be a prejudicial view that you have brought it on yourself, and that's a nonsense," she said.

About 85 per cent of obese people had a "powerful genetic predisposition", which meant they would seek out high-energy foods and store fat.

Toomath said the only proven treatment for obesity was stomach-stapling surgery and it was "astonishing" surgeries were not publicly funded across New Zealand.

Public health nutritionist Bronwen King said there were a "woeful lack of services" to tackle obesity, especially those for obese children.

"I just don't know what crisis point we have to reach before people start thinking prevention," she said.

Canterbury dietitian Lea Stening said a Partnership Health-funded programme to help obese people with chronic conditions lose weight had been scrapped in May.

During its one year of funding, obese people with chronic health problems could have five free visits with a dietitian.

Stening said the funding had allowed her to open a clinic in Aranui which had to be closed once the money ran out.

Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said the Government took the problem of "unhealthy weight" seriously.

"The previous government focused on nutrition, but we are taking a more balanced approach with a greater role for physical activity and sports programmes in curbing the obesity problem," he said.

The Government was spending about $70 million a year on nutrition and physical activity programmes, including $20m on Kiwisport.

No programmes had been scrapped, but some "poor-quality spending" had been shifted to frontline services, Dunne said.

- © Fairfax NZ News