Health experts warn of obesity pandemic
- From: "Roman Bystrianyk" <rbystrianyk@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 4 Sep 2006 17:42:23 -0700
ROHAN SULLIVAN, "Health experts warn of obesity pandemic", Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, September 3, 2006,
Link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/1500AP_Obesity_Conference.html
An obesity pandemic threatens to overwhelm health systems around the
globe with illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, experts at an
international conference warned Sunday.
"This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the
entire world," Paul Zimmet, chairman of the meeting of more than 2,500
experts and health officials, said in a speech opening the weeklong
International Congress on Obesity. "It's as big a threat as global
warming and bird flu."
The World Health Organization says more than 1 billion adults are
overweight and 300 million of them are obese, putting them at much
higher risk of diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, stroke
and some forms of cancer.
Zimmet, a diabetes expert at Australia's Monash University, said there
are now more overweight people in the world than the undernourished,
who number about 600 million.
People in wealthy countries lead in overeating and not doing enough
physical activity, but those in the poorer nations of Asia, Africa and
Latin America are quickly learning bad habits, experts said.
Thailand's Public Health Ministry, for instance, announced Sunday that
nearly one in three Thais over age 35 is at risk of obesity-related
diseases.
"We are not dealing with a scientific or medical problem. We're dealing
with an enormous economic problem that, it is already accepted, is
going to overwhelm every medical system in the world," said Dr. Philip
James, the British chairman of the International Obesity Task Force.
The task force is a section of the International Association for the
Study of Obesity, a professional organization of scientists and health
workers in some 50 countries that deal with the issue.
James said the cost of treating obesity-related health problems was
immeasurable on a global scale, but the group estimated it at billions
of dollars a year in countries such as Australia, Britain and the
United States.
Among the most worrying problems are skyrocketing rates of obesity
among children, which make them much more prone to chronic diseases as
they grow older and could shave years off their lives, experts said.
The children in this generation may be the first in history to die
before their parents because of health problems related to weight, Kate
Steinbeck, an expert in children's health at Sydney's Royal Prince
Alfred Hospital, said in a statement.
Experts at the conference said governments should impose bans on junk
food advertising aimed directly at children, although they acknowledged
such restrictions were unlikely to come about soon because the food
industry would lobby hard against them.
"There is going to be a political bun fight over this for some time,
but of course we shouldn't advertise junk food to children that makes
them fat," said Dr. Boyd Swinburn, a member of the International
Obesity Task Force.
Dr. Claude Bouchard, president of the International Association for the
Study of Obesity, an umbrella group for medical organizations dealing
with weight-related and children's health issues, said the group
supported advertising bans as official policy.
But the policy position is unlikely to have any immediate effect on
influencing governments to introduce such bans, said Bouchard, head of
the Pennington Research Center at Louisiana State University at Baton
Rouge.
.
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