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Obesity

Government’s approach to dealing with New Zealand’s childhood obesity epidemic.

I am sure many of you found recent comments in the UK Chief Medical Officer’s annual report as chilling as I did.

He said the reality of the obesity epidemic would mean many parents would outlive their children.

We do not want that to happen here. We are facing a child obesity epidemic in New Zealand, but we can still do something about it.

That is why it is so important to be part of a positive symposium like this that aims to “be part of the solution”, to stop laying blame, and to plan the way forward.

I think it is great to get in on the ground floor, to plan for the future, not the let the future hit is.
I want to thank Professor Ian Watson, the Principal of Massey University’s Albany Campus, the Symposium Coordinator Rose Carr, and all the other leading health, food, industry and media experts who have willingly become involved in the spirit of this Symposium.

We will know a lot more detail about the extent of childhood obesity in New Zealand when the Children’s Nutrition Survey is published late this year.

This will be our first national survey of children, and includes information from over 3200 children aged between 5 and 14, randomly selected from schools around New Zealand.

But, before the survey is even completed, we already know a number of relevant facts.

The first of these is that obese children are more likely to become obese adults, thus increasing the risk of associated diseases, especially type 2 diabetes, of which New Zealand has an epidemic, heart disease, hypertension, some forms of cancer, and joint and skeletal problems.

We also know that one in seven New Zealand children suffer from obesity, and that this percentage is increasing.

The ‘Nutrition and the Burden of Disease’ report, which I launched last month, provides disturbing evidence about the destructive impact of poor nutrition.

The report revealed that two out of...