When the national healthy weight for life strategy was launched it emerged that dealing with obesity and its related problems cost the public health service €19.5 million in 2008. This was conservatively estimated to rise to €27 million by 2020 unless the present surge in overweight and obesity was somehow curbed.
An earlier study had shown that this figure is likelier to rise to €70 million over the next 20 years when the crop of obese children become obese adults. This is because 36 per cent of Maltese adults are overweight but the rate in childhood is higher and, as children and adults age, the tendency is for additional weight to be gained. Moreover, fat adults produce fat children. Indeed, the risk of a child being obese is about 30 per cent if one parent is obese and rises to 60 per cent if both parents are.
It is strongly hoped that the recently-launched strategy will work and work well. It has been incubating since 2007 and involved six ministries in an Intersectoral Committee to Counteract Obesity, tasked with drawing up this campaign.
The aim is to halt and even reverse the present and increasing overweight and obesity trend at all ages. If successful, it will reduce individual health risks and their associated social and economic consequences that are not only personal but also affect the state. Its implementation will involve a series of three-year rolling action plans.
The strategy will attempt to reduce the overweight rate among the adult population from the current 36 per cent to 33 and obesity from 22 per cent to 18. Children will also be targeted in an attempt to reduce overweight and obese seven-year-olds from 32 per cent to 27 and to strive to maintain the proportion of obese 13-year-olds below the 15 per cent level.
This may sound trivial but will be extremely difficult to achieve. Yet, it is worth attempting because any drops in these percentages translates into millions of euros in savings for the government’s coffers in terms of decreased health care costs. For this reason, even achieving zero growth in overweight and obesity levels might be considered a victory of sorts.
Just to give an idea of the nature of the problem, it is estimated that obesity causes 80 per cent of Type II diabetes, 55 per cent of hypertension and 35 per cent of heart disease.
Moreover, obesity also predisposes to many kinds of cancers, gallstones, asthma, musculoskeletal disorders, mental problems, reduced fertility and sleep ailments, such as apnoea. The bottom line is that the state has to fund the treatment for all of these conditions on the national health service.
The strategy proposes to explore the possibility of taxing unhealthy foods and making healthier ones more accessible, possibly even through subsidies.
It will take a monumental effort to encourage people to ditch unhealthy food. Fifteen per cent of adults eat processed meat products such as burgers and sausages on a daily basis! For a Mediterranean island, fish consumption is abysmally low and an incredible 40 per cent of children actually consume soft drinks every day.
The strategy seeks to cut the intake of processed meat by five per cent and the percentage of the population who never consumes fish by 20 per cent. It will also aim to reduce the consumption of sweets and soft drinks, salt and fat by 10 per cent across the board.
Common sense and restraint is essential for the individual but there must also be all-round cooperation and discipline.