Towns plan aims to turn obesity tide

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

An experiment that aims to change the behaviour of whole towns to stop obesity has taken another step forward.

The $700,000 Otago towns project - featuring three as-yet unnamed Otago communities - has won the Health Research Council funding it needed to carry on.

Researchers will try to turn the tide of obesity afflicting New Zealand and other Western societies.

They are trying a range of exercise and diet strategies, from setting up walking school "buses" and running line-dancing sessions to giving talks warning about sugar-laden fizzy drinks and fatty foods.

They take measurements of bodies and diets and record the physical activity of primary schoolchildren in the towns to compare, over three years, with those in other Otago towns.

A third of New Zealand children and just over half of adults are overweight or obese and the problem is worsening. Excess weight increases a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Otago University won a $1.45 million, three-year grant from the Government-funded research council for obesity and diabetes studies.

In its annual funding announcement today, the council has given $51.4 million to health research institutions, compared with $47.7 million last year.

Otago Professor Jim Mann, a diabetes expert, said preliminary work on the Otago towns project had started, but the council funding was essential for it to proceed.

"This is one of the most exciting projects I have done in 25 years of research.

"Obesity and diabetes are the epidemics of the world. So far attempts to do anything about it are pretty depressing. People are getting fatter and fatter."

He said the project aimed to change the behaviour of a whole community, because lack of physical activity and bad diet were about more than just personal choice.

"Anybody who thinks it's completely personal choice is in cloud cuckoo land. You have to create the opportunity for people."

Healthy-food choices were limited in the study towns, said Professor Mann. The research group was considering encouraging the creation of community gardens to grow vegetables, a strategy used in a community project with the Ngati Porou Hauora primary health organisation on the East Coast.

Otago University is the big winner in the funding distribution, taking 64 per cent, up from 40 per cent last year. Auckland University has dropped to 26 per cent, from 47.5 per cent.

But council chief executive Bruce Scoggins attributed the differences to normal fluctuations in the three-year funding cycle for the biggest grants. He said the two universities had received roughly the same sums over the last decade.

The remaining 9.4 per cent of the distribution goes to other universities, private or Crown research institutes and the Auckland District Health Board.

As well as the Otago diabetes and obesity research, other programmes to receive major grants include Wellington Medical School's investigation of links between housing and health; Christchurch Medical School's research into genetic influences on the effect of anti-depressant drugs and non-drug treatments for bipolar and eating disorders; and the Auckland University-Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre development of tumour-activated "pro-drugs" for cancer therapy.