US government releases plan on obesity

The US National Institutes of Health said yesterday it was launching a systematic campaign to fight obesity, which now affects close to two-thirds of the US population and threatens to overtake smoking as the leading cause of death.

The plan calls for targeting obesity at several levels, including behavioural and environmental changes such as better city planning to encourage exercise; developing better drugs and surgical approaches; finding out and fighting the ways obesity causes diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers; and translating the research into something people can use.

"On the surface, it may seem that the solution to the obesity epidemic is obvious: 'Get people to eat less and exercise more,'" the plan reads.

"The reality is that this change is very difficult to accomplish, and research is critical to address the issue successfully."

An estimated 65 per cent of Americans are overweight and 31 per cent are obese, meaning they are at serious risk of disease from their fat. "Levels of childhood overweight have nearly tripled since 1970: approximately 16 per cent of children and teens ages six through 19 are now overweight," adds the report, found on the Internet at http://obesityresearch.nih.gov.

"The levels of pediatric overweight have ominous implications for the development of serious diseases, both during youth and later in adulthood," it adds.

"Left unabated, the escalating rates of obesity in the US population will place a severe burden on the nation's health and its healthcare system." Obesity cost an estimated $117 billion a year in direct medical costs and indirect costs such as lost wages due to illness, the NIH said.