In Tasmania, obesity and obesity related health problems are a major issue. As statistics presented in ‘Tasmanian State of Public Health Report 2008’ show, the prevalence of overweight and obesity (self-reported data) for 18 years and over, has jumped from 36.5% in 1989/90 to 48.9% in 2004/05. This is a significant increase. There are no figures for younger age groups and only the limited data from national surveys is available.
The report goes on to say with regard to obesity:
“Socio-environmental changes offer the best hope we have for addressing this socially-determined and major public health issue.”
In the foreword of the report, Dr Roscoe Taylor (Director for Population and Public health) wrote:
“The collective approach spans all levels of government across a range of departments, non-government organisations, community groups, industry and employers, and benefits the entire population across the lifespan. Many of the best forms of public health promotion and protection are subtle or have become so accepted as part of our societal norms that they have become invisible, and go unsung. I commend such efforts to Parliament.”
The environmental factors that play a part in the obesity epidemic are now firmly identified and are more than just the simple sum of low socio-economic status, high alcohol and junk food intake and a sedentary lifestyle. The elephant in the room has been clearly identified and stated, ”early exposure to common chemicals may be programming kids to be fat.”
The fact that Newsweek has just run a major article on obesogens (chemicals that can reprogramme cell development and metabolic rate) is very significant. We all know obesity is at the heart of numerous epidemic health problems, such as diabetes, renal disease and heart disease and cancer, all of which are over-represented in Tasmania. Obesogens link the chronic health epidemics of our time directly to chemical contaminants. Preventative health strategies to reduce obesity and the ensuing burdening costly health problems must include a collective approach by all levels of government which in turn make chemical policy reform an essential ingredient of health care reform. The open letter to Ministers Giddings and Llewellyn in April 2009 from concerned doctors and scientists asked specifically to prohibit the use and sale throughout the State of all pesticides which adversely affect health.
Dr Alison Bleaney OBE
Sec BODCRG- a group affiliated to National Toxic Network
Early exposure to common chemicals may be programming kids to be fat.
By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 11, 2009
Born to be big. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, act on genes in the fetus and newborn to make more fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them. Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215179
“The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,” says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.” They are not the cause of extra pounds in every person who is overweight—for older adults, who were less likely to be exposed to so many of the compounds before birth, the standard explanations of genetics and lifestyle probably suffice—but environmental chemicals may well account for a good part of the current epidemic, especially in those under 50. And at the individual level, exposure to the compounds during a critical period of development may explain one of the most frustrating aspects of weight gain: you eat no more than your slim friends, and exercise no less, yet are still unable to shed pounds…..
In 2005 scientists in Spain reported that the more pesticides children were exposed to as fetuses, the greater their risk of being overweight as toddlers. And last January scientists in Belgium found that children exposed to higher levels of PCBs and DDE (the breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) before birth were fatter than those exposed to lower levels. Neither study proves causation, but they “support the findings in experimental animals,” says Newbold. They “show a link between exposure to environmental chemicals … and the development of obesity.”…
The new thinking about obesity comes at a pivotal time politically. As the debate over health care shines a light on the country’s unsustainable spending on doctors, hospitals, and drugs, the obese make tempting scapegoats. About 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and their health-care costs are higher: $3,400 in annual spending for a normal-weight adult versus $4,870 for an obese adult, mostly due to their higher levels of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. If those outsize costs inspire greater efforts to prevent and treat obesity, fine. But if they lead to demonizing the obese—caricaturing them as indolent pigs raising insurance premiums for the rest of us—that’s a problem, and not only for ethical reasons: it threatens to obscure that one potent cause of weight gain may be largely beyond an individual’s control.”
