Balance, not moral panic needed in obesity debate

Press Release

Balance, not moral panic is needed in the obesity epidemic debate

We need to learn from the sensitive handling of the AIDS epidemic to avoid marginalising and isolating overweight and obese people, says Citizens and Ratepayers Auckland District Health Board Candidate, Kevin Hicks. The publicity of the obesity epidemic borders on hysteria at times which could lead to adoption of fad diets and subsequent unforeseen health risks. In addition, as a society we already have a serious problem with body image leading to low self esteem and eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia, of which our young women, and increasingly boys, are so vulnerable to. We need to make sure that our public health messages about obesity are based on sound scientific evidence, not moral panic. It is important that our public health messages do not feed the hype that re-enforces media images and body stereotypes found in glossy magazines. If we aspire to an ideal ("hourglass") body shape that, for most people, is unattainably thin, it will pose just as great a health risk to those who try to obtain it as obesity. We need obese and overweight New Zealanders to be actively involved in the management of their health. Poorly conceived public health promotions that stigmatise and marginalised the obese run the risk of not only driving them away from the health services designed to help them, it may make them less healthy, and are likely to fail in the goal of reducing overweight and obesity in New Zealand. And that means money down the drain.

Kevin has consulted with obesity researcher Kathy Mountjoy at Auckland University on this issue. "One thing that concerns me is our government and society is putting the blame for the obesity epidemic on the pathologically obese by saying that obesity can be cured by healthy eating and exercise. Unfortunately for many obese people eating healthy and exercising is extremely difficult to keep up on a permanent basis (it has to be permanent if they are to keep the weight off) because some obese people have variants of genes that make them susceptible to weight gain in modern society. Blaming these people for being overweight or obese is going to enhance the problem because this will lead to increased depression and low self esteem and hence the strong drive for some of these people to eat (comfort food). It is essential that our government promotes healthy eating and exercise (especially to young children to prevent obesity) because this is the best we can do at present to treat obesity. However, for this to CURE obesity you would need to lock the obese people up and feed them a limited amount of calories per day and force them to exercise. In the real world healthy eating and exercise will never cure the obesity epidemic but of course this has to be promoted. In the longer term we need to understand the mechanisms that are driving the obesity epidemic. Only by doing this will we hopefully be able to develop interventions to treat obesity in the future."

Kevin agrees with this approach. "What we need is well planned, multidisciplinary research into the causes and mechanisms of weight gain and obesity, not finger pointing based on anecdotal evidence, preconceived notions or prejudice." He asks for a reasoned scientific approach to weight problems, eating disorders and the spreading of nutritional information.

ENDS

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