Lifestyle and Leisure
Obesity down under
Do Australians see obesity as an illness or a lack of self control? Hanna Lindon weighs up the fat debate.
It's official – Australians are getting fatter. A recent report from the World Health Organisation estimated that a massive 75.7 per cent of Australian males and 66.5 per cent of females would be overweight by 2010, with 28.4 per cent of males and 29.1 per cent of females weighing in as officially obese. The report further revealed that obesity levels among Australians is second only to the US.
So where are the Australians going wrong? Well, for a start they're addicted to fast food. Surveys of the average diet show that many Aussies have diets that are too high in fat and lacking in vitamins and minerals, while fast food joints abound in towns and cities. The latest research also seems to indicate that obesity is linked to social disadvantage. A study conducted by an associate professor of health and nutrition at the University of Sydney, Jenny O'Dea, found an obesity rate among aboriginal children of 20 per cent. In contrast, the obesity rate for children in general was 5 per cent. The study concluded that this was as a result of a generally poorer diet among the aboriginal population.
As well as highlighting the social divide between Australians, growing obesity levels will have a detrimental effect on the country's health system. As Dr Lyn Roberts, Chair of the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance and Chief Executive Officer of the National Heart Foundation of Australia, points out: "Obesity and overweight people in Australia have increased in unprecedented levels over the past 30 years and threaten to cause a major, yet preventable, surge in the incidence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke and kidney disease. "The human and economic cost of obesity and overweight people will continue to escalate if steps are not taken now to encourage lifestyle choices that promote better health." But what steps should be taken to counteract Australia's growing obesity problem? The Government has already made the first move: last month it committed to investing more than AUS$37 million in nutrition and physical activity programmes as part of its contribution to the Council of Australian Governments'' Australian Better Health Initiative (ABHI).
It was an action commended by Dr Roberts, who said that more investment was needed to control chronic diseases like obesity. "The Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance applauded ABHI when it was announced last year and is pleased to see the Commonwealth Government funding community-based programmes designed to prevent chronic disease," she said. "These local programmes will complement the Government's nutrition and physical activity survey, which will help to ensure an informed approach is taken to developing future programmes aimed at reversing the obesity epidemic. "With obesity alone costing Australia around AUS$21 billion a year, there is a strong case for obesity prevention and control to be an election issue." How obesity should be viewed and treated is a controversial issue in Australia, as it is in the UK. Is fatness to be viewed as a disease, like anorexia and bulimia, or should it be considered the result of over-indulgence?
How Australia answers this question will determine the way in which obesity will be treated in the future and the programmes put in place to help overweight people.
There are a number of factors that contribute towards obesity and create 'high risk' groups. The first of these is genetic makeup – the inherited speed of a person's metabolic rate will determine how fast they burn fat and therefore how at risk they are of gaining weight.
The second factor is lifestyle – somebody with a sedentary lifestyle who fails to exercise regularly is again more likely to put on weight than a highly active person. Other factors can include thyroid problems, stress levels and over-eating. Looking at the numerous and varied causes of obesity, it seems wrong to lump all overweight people into one category – whether that is 'ill' or 'lacking self-discipline'. People become obese for a number of reasons, and a combination of prevention tactics, medical treatments and psychological therapy is needed to combat the – quite literally – growing problem across the world.
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