Are rugby clubs the answer to Kiwi obesity?

Rugby - with its high male, Maori and Pacific fan base - provides an ideal way to deliver weight management programmes, say researchers. File photo / Bevan Conley

Rugby clubs might be the answer to helping hundreds of Kiwi men lose weight - and now a new study is hoping to prove that.

Almost $150,000 has been awarded by the Health Research Council of NZ to fund a feasibility study that will look at whether a weight loss programme for men through professional rugby clubs could work.

The study is based on a similar initiative in Scotland, where hundreds of football fans connected with local football clubs who ran regular fitness training and healthy lifestyle classes. The initiative has been going on for a few years now and has helped hundreds of men lose weight.

Associate Professor Ralph Maddison, of the University of Auckland, will be behind the Kiwi study and said it was an idea that could really stick with Kiwi men - particularly Maori and Pasifika men.

"Professional rugby - with its high male, Maori and Pacific fan base - provides an ideal way to deliver weight management programmes," he said.

"This study will modify and pre-test an effective and cost-effective programme developed in Scotland with professional soccer clubs to determine its acceptability for New Zealand men."

In New Zealand, 31 per cent of adults are obese and 34 per cent of adults are overweight. In 1997, 17 per cent of males were classified as obese. That figure rose to 30 per cent in 2012/13 and men now have higher rates of obesity than women.

Dr Maddison acknowledged that connecting with overweight men through rugby clubs would help push away the idea that dieting and weight management programmes were for women - another common reason why Kiwi men typically did not get involved in such programmes.

Dr Maddison's study is one of nine to receive a total of just over $1.2 million in Feasibility Study funding from the Health Research Council of NZ this year.