A year on: little progress on child obesity
By Claire O’Sullivan
THE Government has done little to tackle the growing problem of childhood obesity despite launching a national strategy a year ago, it was claimed last night.
Members of a taskforce which drew up an action plan to tackle the health time bomb said the Government still hasn’t made it a priority despite numerous promises.
The warning comes as the latest figures show obesity figures here are just eight years behind those in the US, where the problem has reached epidemic levels.
At the heart of the National Obesity Taskforce Report, which included 90 recommendations, was the need for “joined-up thinking” among Government departments and agencies to tackle obesity by improving the national diet and increasing adult and child activity levels.
Yet a national implementation committee still hasn’t been put in place.
A senior source on the taskforce said yesterday: “We wrote up this report and are hugely aware of the need for urgency on the issue of obesity.
“But, over a year later there is no co-ordinating mechanism in place and this is vital to drive the report and fight the obesogenic environment that the report highlighted.”
Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) representative on the National Obesity Taskforce Dr John O’Riordan has said more and more doctors are seeking stomach reduction operations for their patients.
“I have heard of a number of GPs who need gastric banding operations for patients but can’t access them in this country. In some cases, it is the only solution for their patients.
“Private medical organisations are trying to offer this service but we find many of them have inadequate post- operative supports.
“We need the obesity clinics to be expanded across the country urgently and gastric banding is just one of the treatments they would provide,” Dr O’Riordan said.
Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute spokeswoman Margot Brennan, who also sat on the taskforce committee, said: “We would really like to see more progress as childhood obesity is a frightening problem.
“I was at a conference recently where it said that by 2040 almost 100% of Americans would be overweight if their lifestyles didn’t change. It is a huge worry and we’re not far behind,” she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Health defended their handling of the problem, saying they are “currently developing a proposal for the establishment of a Health Improvement Forum which will have the capacity to co-ordinate health promotion/population health approaches across ministries”.
Ireland’s children are already more overweight than their European neighbours, with one-in-five obese here compared to one-in-six across Europe.
The National Obesity Taskforce Report was published in May last year. According to the Department of Health, €3 million was allocated to the HSE towards its implementation this year.
Some of the projects planned include the provision of four obesity specialist community dietician posts across the country and the further development of the one existing obesity clinic at St Colmcille’s Hospital in Louglinstown which sees around 500 people but has at least another 200 on its waiting lists.
A HSE spokesman said: “In the past week we have received development monies to support the development of further weight management centres in Cork, Galway and North Dublin and a service at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children.”
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