Getting to grips with obesity

Other strong recommendations emerging from international and Australian reports is the re-designing of urban public space to encourage people to be active and fostering of group-based activity or “buddy systems” which call for social interaction - these prove particularly effective with professional guidance.

Increasingly “artificial” measures have been used to alleviate the resulting health consequences of our overweight population: measures such as lipid and blood pressure-lowering drugs, heart bypass operations, stents, liposuction, stomach stapling and other surgical procedures.

Those who can afford it often look in the first instance to drugs and surgery for answers while for those with limited financial resource options are more restricted and they join the victims of the widening health-wealth gap.

The health-wealth gap is a major concern in fitness issues. Incidence of obesity, heart disease and cancer among the poorer segments of society are well documented as significantly higher than for well off individuals who can afford better education - they are better informed, have more money for food choices, health care and physical activity such as health club and gym memberships.

Tracing trends identified in data collected in Australia over the last decade, we can demonstrate that the distribution of health-wealth is widening. Extend the trend, unabated, into the future of 30-40 years and hypothetically we could see a society separated into virtually two populations that interact less and less, rarely inter-breed, while suffering very different types of diseases. There is much evidence to show that we are at the start of this scenario now.

Despite an enormous number of initiatives implemented to address fitness and diet, overall levels of physical activity continue to decline while the population’s weight is on the rise particularly in extreme levels of obesity.

Seeking answers at Sport Knowledge Australia’s “Fat Policy - Public Health and Education” seminar in Sydney on April 17 will be senior sport administrators, fitness experts and policy analysts. They will be joined by representatives from sport, public health and education to identify what can be done to change society’s behaviour and workshop a strategy for comprehensive integrated policy to address physical activity and obesity.