A tide of fat

Melanie Tait, the ABC Broadcaster who had a gastric band in 2008 (paying for it herself) conceded that the virtues required for traditional weight loss – self-restraint and increased physical activity - remain essential ingredients for long-term success, even with the artificial kick-start created by stapling one's stomach.

Long-term studies do indicate that the majority of gastric band recipients shed some serious kilos - some of them losing up to 50% of their body weight. However, even with these extraordinary weight loss numbers, many gastric band recipients still report BMIs over 30 – although a far cry from their pre-operative BMIs of 45+ these 'success story' patients are still, technically, obese.

Additionally, a recent Monash University study revealed that up to half of the candidates required follow up surgery – will these costs also be covered by the publicly funded package?

If the government is going to intervene, a reverse HECS arrangement may prove the most effective way to preserve private incentives - the individual bears the upfront costs of the gastric band and weighs in annually for a decade – for every year their weight loss is deemed adequate to alleviate medical pressures and this weight loss is maintained they are awarded a partial rebate.

There is no stand out solution and there is still so much to be tried and tested, but for now we need to start thinking of obesity as the ominous threat that it really is – it must sit in our psyches alongside its fear-breeding equals.

However, what may stand to separate the obesity epidemic from its catastrophic cohort, as The Economist poignantly notes - is that it is an entirely preventable problem.

Be it folklore or fact, it is still widely quoted that 95% of people who diet fail to lose the intended weight, or, if they do, they're back to square one before they've even had time to enjoy their slender self.

Perhaps a psychological shake up of what is motivating us to spend more than $800m this year on weight loss measures could go some way in securing greater long-term success – in these desperate times it's at least worth canvassing.

So I implore you, think not of those jeans you so desperately want to get back into, or of being trim and taut for your cousin's wedding, but - cue drum roll for the syrupy, emotionally charged warning - the burden your weight places on your generation, your children's generation and your children's children's generation.