Three proposals for the anti-obesity campaign

In response to the obesity epidemic, a national anti-obesity campaign is about to take off to address this serious problem in our country. It is time to establish our present status and then identify priorities for action. A multi-sectorial team will be set up and I hope that primarily experts from the areas of nutrition, health, sports, hospitality and education will be involved. This team should set a plan of action for both long term and short term solutions to this problem.

I would just like to make three important contributions at this stage:

1) Nutrition education needs to start in primary schools either as a curricular subject or across subjects. B.Ed (Hons.) Home Economics and primary education students have produced many dissertations on this subject and have valid recommendations as to how nutrition can be taught in primary schools.

Attitudes and behaviours towards food and healthy lifestyles need to be developed from an early age.

Evidence suggests that children are now choosing less active pastimes, eating fast foods and watching television. We need to tackle this to prevent obesity, otherwise the problem will still prevail and effective treatments are not so easy. Sports and nutrition education should be at the helm of this long term campaign.

2) Thankfully this is going to be a national campaign and so I hope that restaurants, canteens, tuck shops, cafés, bars, etc. will be urged to provide healthy alternatives at reasonable and realistic prices. It is not helpful to find salads costing anything between Lm2.95 and Lm4 and then feel cheated when looking at the ingredients. Fresh fruit salads and juices should also be available at a reasonable price as this will attract the consumer. Healthy snacks such as wholemeal ftiras with low-fat ingredients should be on every menu. Soft drinks and high calorie foods should be more expensive than their healthier alternatives. We need to decrease the portion size. Desserts should come in smaller portions and healthy low calorie alternatives are a must in every restaurant.

3) If there are vending machines, tuck shops, canteens or bars inside or outside schools, workplaces or sports facilities, these should not include high-fat, low-nutrient density foods. We must have a restriction on the number of vendors licensed to sell high-fat foods.

Obesity is a major risk factor for numerous diseases and losing weight is challenging and often temporary, therefore let's try to prevent it in the most appropriate ways.