Obesity-related illnesses 'to worsen'

New Zealand has a profound obesity problem which could take 20 years to bring under control, according to health officials.

Members of Parliament's health select committee heard yesterday how New Zealand had experienced a "profound change" in the increase of obesity numbers in the late 1980s and a range of action was urgently needed to bring the numbers down.

Deputy Director-General of Public Health Don Matheson said there was an undeniable link between obesity and health problems experienced later in life, such as diabetes.

"As the current population ages this problem will get considerably worse," Dr Matheson said.

The impact of obesity contributed to about 3200 deaths a year - less than the impact of tobacco consumption, but considerably more than the impact of most other public health risks, he said.

The "remarkable change" in obesity numbers was not due to a change in people, but the environment in which people lived had changed radically.

There had also been a change in the amount of physical activity and the consumption of "energy-dense food and drink", he said.

The question of why obesity had increased was open to debate, but factors included longer worker hours and different lifestyles than 20 years ago, he said.

Cities had not been designed to give opportunity to maximise physical activity, transport systems no longer depended on human activity and there had been a huge increase in the marketing of energy-dense food, he said.

The impact of the increase in obesity numbers was also not spread evenly among the population, with Maori and Pacific Island groups being most affected, he said.

"If we look at children the impact is higher amongst Pacific boys and girls and Maori boys and girls than it is in the rest of the population."

A range of health programmes, including the continuation of initiatives the ministry had already enacted in communities and schools, was needed over 10 to 20 years to reverse the 10- to 15-year trend, Dr Matheson said.

"The solutions do not sit only in the health sector.

It is a wider government-sector responsibility and a wider society responsibility."

During questioning Dr Matheson said the ministry would know in five years if strategies were working to reduce the number of obese people.

The committee chairwoman, Green MP Sue Kedgley, said the marketing of food which was energy dense and targeted at children seemed to be getting worse despite a Food Industry Accord (FIA) which had been aimed at reducing such marketing.

Dr Matheson said the FIA was "early days" yet and the "jury was out" on whether it would be an effective body for the ministry to rely on. But the ministry would continue to work with it.

Ms Kedgley questioned what she described as the ministry's lack of action against the marketing of energy dense food at children and asked why regulation was not being used.

Dr Matheson said regulation was a powerful tool but depended on whether the public accepted the need for it.

There had been no direction from the Government over the need for regulation.

He said the ministry was planning a campaign to educate children and the public.  

- NZPA