Australia Obesity and Arthritis 21st June 2007, 6:00 WST 
A staggering 93,000 WA children aged between five and 15 are estimated to be overweight or obese, putting them at risk of not just heart disease as they get older but also the crippling bone disease arthritis.
A WA Health Department survey of 6500 West Australians shows that despite many warnings about obesity, rates of physical activity have kept falling over the past five years while body mass index scores have risen.
An estimated 321,000 West Australians are believed to have arthritis now and experts are worried that obesity rates in children will lead to the number escalating.
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital musculoskeletal expert James Williamson said overweight children and teenagers were already putting increased pressure on their joints, which could increase their risk of arthritic conditions such as osteoarthritis down the track.
“At that age, the bones are being formed and the shape of the joints is being determined, so excessive stress will produce a response and you would anticipate that at that formative stage the impact will be longer-lasting and more difficult to reverse,” Dr Williamson said.
Curtin University professor of health policy Mike Daube said the survey results were a wake-up call for the community and showed the obesity epidemic had arrived with a thud.
“Just under half the State’s adult population, and even more worryingly, a quarter of our kids, are overweight or obese, and that means around 900,000 overweight or obese West Australians,” he said.
A Sydney study has found that parents rarely raise concerns about their child’s weight with the family doctor and most GPs do not weigh children regularly for fear of upsetting parents.
The NSW Centre for Overweight and Obesity research was presented in Canberra yesterday at an obesity forum, which also was told by the head of the International Obesity Taskforce that “traffic-light coding” on food labels was urgently needed in Australia to curb obesity rates.
The Food Regulation Standards Committee is considering recommendations on food labelling. Liberal Senator Guy Barnett, who organised the forum, said he would take them to the Government in the coming weeks.
CATHY O’LEARY and RHIANNA KING
Australia Obesity and Arthritis