Page 702 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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In Australia, levels of overweight and obesity are increasing at alarming rates. Results from the national health survey between 1989 and 2001 suggested an 80 per cent increase in the prevalence of obesity in men and a 71 per cent increase in women. Of concern is the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in children. The figures I have cited in relation to the ACT, however, are some of the lowest in Australia. But there is no room for complacency; we are seeing an increase, albeit a lesser increase than that occurring nationally.
Obesity in children is a major risk factor for obesity in adulthood and a wide range of debilitating conditions in later life, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, certain types of cancers, osteoarthritis, kidney and gall bladder disease, as well as respiratory and muscular skeletal problems. The economic costs of obesity and its associated conditions are high also. In 1995-96 the economic cost to Australia as a result of obesity was estimated to be between $689 million and $1,239 million and contributed to four per cent of the total burden of ill health.
For all of these reasons the ACT government has made a major commitment to programs that encourage healthy and active children in our community. In the budget year 2004-05, ACT Health was allocated $2 million over four years for a combating childhood obesity program. The goal of this initiative is to prevent childhood overweight and obesity in the ACT through interventions that promote good nutrition and increased levels of physical activity. This is very much a program that we need to be in for the long term—there are no quick fixes—and it could take a decade to turn around the trend to increasing obesity.
In September 2004 ACT Health released the public health nutrition plan 2000-2010. This plan provides a framework and sets strategic directions and priorities for public health nutrition in the ACT. A key priority area is the prevention of overweight and obesity in children and the prevention of further weight gain in adults. ACT Health continues to work with other departments in developing a physical activity framework that identifies directions and priorities in relation to physical activity in the ACT.
In addition, ACT Health will administer grant funding for a variety of projects in 2005-06 as part of our health promoting schools vitality funding round. All these projects focus on increasing participation of children in physical activity and promoting healthy eating. ACT Health has a number of projects already under way that encourage healthy and active children. These include the Go for 2&5 program, which incorporates three years of funding for a fruit and vegetable campaign targeting children, young people and their families—two pieces of fruit and five pieces of vegetable every day; the family weight management program, aimed to support families to make lifestyle changes in order to prevent excess weight gain in their children; and healthy eating guidelines for ACT schools, a joint program between ACT Health and the Department of Education and Training to develop a framework for schools to deliver consistent food and nutrition messages to their school communities.
It is also important to recognise the lack of adequate information that can be used to monitor overweight and obesity and associated risk factors and so the government has allocated resources, which I have recently signed off on, to develop a surveillance system that can be used to monitor and evaluate the impact of intervention strategies to reduce
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