May
31
Obesity Epidemic Exaggerated: Report
Filed Under In The News |
Hysteria over fat children inflated
The Weekend Australian
Adam Cresswell, Health editor | May 31, 2008
AUSTRALIA’S childhood obesity epidemic has been “exaggerated” and government-led national prevention efforts may be misdirected, with childhood obesity only increasing in lower-income families.
Controversial new research into childhood obesity rates has called into question whether the millions of dollars allocated by the federal Government for obesity prevention programs should be targeted to the highest-risk groups, rather than focused at the general population.
The findings, based on measurements taken from thousands of Australian children in two nationally representative samples in 2000 and 2006, found that the growth in childhood obesity overall has slowed to a crawl, and the only statistically significant increases are now among boys and girls from low-income homes.
The overall obesity rate rose only slightly, from 6 per cent in 2000 to 6.8 per cent in 2006 - an increase researchers said was not statistically significant.
Among low-income boys, obesity almost doubled from 5.4 per cent in 2000 to 9.3 per cent in 2006. The increase for wealthier children was much less, rising from 4.9 per cent to 6.8 per cent among middle-income boys and from 3.7 per cent to 4.9 per cent for the wealthiest.
Among low-income girls, the obesity rate increased from 3.9per cent in 2000 to 6.8 per cent in 2006, whereas the rate stayed flat at 5.5 per cent for middle-income girls, and increased from 2.4 per cent to 3.9per cent among high-income girls.
Australia’s health ministers in 2003 labelled obesity “an epidemic”. In this month’s budget, the Government said it would spend $62 million under its National Preventative Health Strategy to fight obesity, including nearly $13 million to fund a kitchen garden program in 190 schools nationally.
But Jenny O’Dea, associate professor of child health research at the University of Sydney, willtell a Nutrition Australia conference next month that obesity in children “has not increased overall” between 2000 and 2006.
In comments that have already drawn fire from some other obesity experts, Professor O’Dea told The Weekend Australian there was “no doubt that it (childhood obesity) has been exaggerated”.
“Some kids are more at risk than others, and that’s where the prevention efforts need to go,” she said.
Last night, Health Minister Nicola Roxon said obesity was “a significant challenge in health and a cause of several major chronic diseases - and will remain a priority for the Rudd Government”.
The findings are based on two studies using nationally representative samples, one conducted in 2000 and based on 4500 primary and high school children, and a further study of 6000 children in 2006. Although the overall rate of childhood obesity rose only marginally, further analysis showed a significant rise among children from lower socio-economic families.
Professor O’Dea said there had been “an assumption that all of our children are at risk of obesity and ill-health”.
“This latest data shows that’s not really true - there’s something protective about high income and middle income, and the real risk has been in low-income children,” Professor O’Dea said. “They (other experts) have to look at the evidence, and they are refusing to do it.
“I’m not saying there’s no risk in other children. I’m just saying if there’s going to be a focus (on prevention), you get a bigger bang for your buck by focusing on these disadvantaged groups.”
Last week, a US study found there had been “no significant increase” in the prevalence of obesity in American children and teenagers from 1999 to 2006, contrary to figures from prior years. The study, published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, found obesity rates varied by racial group, being higher for non-Hispanic black and Mexican- American girls than for non-Hispanic white girls.
Professor O’Dea said her Australian data showed the rate of obesity was 25 per cent among Pacific Islander children, 18 per cent among Middle Eastern children and 10 per cent among Aboriginal children.
“It’s politically incorrect to point the finger of risk at social class. But when you have the data sitting in front of you, it’s very clear - it’s not an issue of prejudice, it’s an issue of social justice.
“There’s a lot of money to be made out of childhood obesity, and … I think that’s where a lot of the hysteria comes from.”
The head of at least one school in an affluent part of inner-eastern Sydney yesterday agreed the obesity problem was neither as ubiquitous nor as uniform as sometimes supposed. Gabrielle McAnespie, principal of St Charles’s Primary School in Waverley, said: “This is my 28th year in teaching, and over that period of time I can’t say I have noticed an increase (in childhood obesity).”
Jan Wright, director of the Child and Youth Interdisciplinary Research Centre at the University of Wollongong, agreed the problem had been exaggerated and dramatised, and said prevention programs needed to focus on improving neighbourhoods with poor facilities, rather than blaming individuals.
“In one Victorian primary school, overweight children were singled out and told to do laps of the oval - which were known within the school as ‘fat laps’,” Professor Wright said.
Ian Caterson, director of the Institute of Obesity, Nutrition and Exercise at Sydney University, said it “would be encouraging if it’s true” that childhood obesity had levelled off.
“I would like to see a bit more data,” Professor Caterson said.
But he said focusing on obesity only, and ignoring the lesser category of overweight, meant the problem was understated.
Posted by Greta Kretchmer on 31 May 2008
Tags: O'Dea, obesity, prevention