Editorial

Obesity is rampant in Malta, at all ages - look around to see it. It stalks the individual, chopping off years from his/her life expectancy and most of us do nothing about it whereas, with any other chronic disease, we would be anxiously chasing doctors, doing all sorts of blood tests and other investigations. It is as if we are collectively failing to realise, deliberately or through ignorance, that overweight and obesity are chronic diseases with high risks of death and additional ills, including heart attack, stroke and cancer.

The Health Department is conscious of this scourge and today, on European Obesity Day, as part of an awareness drive on the dangers of obesity, it is launching a €150,000 campaign in an attempt to urge people to cut down 10 per cent of their weight. This may help the estimated one quarter of Maltese men and one fifth of women who desperately need to lose weight, whether they know it or not.

The campaign, announced by Health Minister Joe Cassar, will include free weight-management and aerobics classes for people who are overweight. However, and quite correctly, the minister emphasised that the state cannot do it all, on its own, and that the individual must play his/her own role by also making the right food choices, along with active exercises and non-sedentary lifestyle choices like walking to our destinations instead of driving everywhere.

The minister also explained that experts within his department were drawing up a strategy that would help individuals make such correct choices in what has now become a desperate bid to attempt to tackle obesity, which starts in childhood.

The problem is worsening as it is now also affecting children, who were previously spared, probably due to their high levels of exercise, but who are now also subject to a sedentary lifestyle spent in front of computer games, DVDs, games consoles etc. Indeed, a study done in 2007 among almost 3,500 five- and six-year-old children found that a third were already overweight or obese, higher even than adult rates, and this tends to worsen with age, not improve.

Puppy fat is a myth and it has been shown that children who enter puberty fat tend to remain fat. And even if they manage to lose weight, damage to the body would have already been done. In addition, such individuals, as is the case with smokers, tend to relapse. Clearly, prevention in childhood is crucial.

As part of the first European Obesity Day, European health experts are urging people to lose five to 10 per cent of their weight because even a mild reduction has profound impact on health improvement and risk reduction of disease. In fact, it is estimated that a five to 10 per cent weight loss leads to approximately a 30 per cent reduction in fat around the abdomen and it is this abdominal fat that most increases the risk of the diseases already mentioned.

A walk will be held in Valletta to mark this first European Obesity Day, organised by the multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, the Malta Heart Foundation, the Malta Exercise Health and Fitness Association and the Diabetes Association. The walk starts at 12.15 p.m. from the Triton Fountain and will make its way down Republic Street to St George's Square. Interested individuals will be able to have their weight circumference measured and their Body Mass Index (BMI) calculated, along with advice on how to address extra weight.

A golden opportunity to start walking the path to good health.