THE obesity crisis in Ireland is such a threat to society that this generation could be the first to be buried by their parents, a Cork TD has warned.
![14/10/2014 Fianna Fail TD Billy Kelleher at Leinster House, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins]()
Fianna Fail TD Billy Kelleher at Leinster House, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins
Fianna Fáil spokesperson for health, Billy Kelleher, warned that Ireland had to get to grips with the issue of obesity, especially in young people, if the country was to avoid sleepwalking into a national epidemic of premature but avoidable death in a few years time.
According to official statistics, Ireland is on course to be the most obese nation in Europe. A new Government strategy – “A Healthy Weight for Ireland – Obesity Policy and Action Plan 2016 – 2025” – was launched this week but Minister for Health, Simon Harris, insisted that no extra resources were needed to fight obesity. He said a change of attitude was needed, not funding.
However, chair of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland’s policy group on obesity, Donal O’Shea, was adamant that funding was needed. Speaking at the launch of the plan, he said: “If this is dead in the water in a year’s time through lack of funding, I will be here saying it.”
He added that obesity was Ireland’s greatest public health problem and required urgent action.
Mr Kelleher, who took on Fianna Fáil’s health brief following his re-election in Cork North Central in 2011, said: “We have a huge problem with obesity in terms of children. We are climbing to the top of the table in comparison to Europe. That will create huge problems for the individual and the cost for society. We will see explosions in diabetes, cardiac problems, ophthalmic problems, amputations, etc. Yet as a people, as a society, as a Government, we are very slow to recognise it because it doesn’t affect us today and tomorrow. We are denying a generation if we do not address it. It could be the first time a generation could be burying a generation born after them.”
According to the Health Service Executive’s launch booklet, in the past two decades levels of overweight and obesity in Ireland have doubled. Now only 40% of Irish citizens have a healthy weight.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) these levels are forecast to increase and Ireland could soon top the European league tables.
If the trend is not reversed, it is forecast that life expectancy will reduce to levels seen decades ago.
According to the HSE booklet, obesity is a condition that develops over a number of years in both children and adults.
The determinants are multiple and include the environment, access to healthy and affordable food, physical activity, exercise and leisure activity, cultural and societal norms, education and skill levels, genetic makeup and lifestyle choices, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, published in 2008.
