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| 2006-09-03 | |
| Obesity has reached pandemic proportions throughout the world and is now the greatest single contributor to chronic disease, an international conference was told here. It is the number one health problem of the American poor.
The spread of the problem was "led by affluent western nations, whose physical activity and dietary habits are regrettably being adopted by developing nations," Zimmet told more than 2,000 delegates. The world now has more fat people than hungry ones, according to World Health Organisation figures, with more than a billion overweight people compared to 800 million who are undernourished. The congress on obesity is held every four years, with the last three staged in Toronto (1994), Paris (1998) and Sao Paulo (2002). "The conference will treat obesity as the keystone of all health priorities because it is the single greatest contributor to chronic disease throughout the world," said University of Sydney professor Ian Caterson, the event co-chair. "There are now more overweight people in the world than undernourished and we are seeing the double burden of the extremes of malnutrition -- undernutrition and overnutrition -- in many developing countries. "We know this is not about gluttony -- it is the interaction of heredity and environment. We know that small changes can make a big difference in peoples weight and health." Zimmet said the problem needed urgent solutions -- not just widespread changes to diet and exercise but the rethinking of national policies on urban and social planning, agriculture policy, education, transport and other areas. He also warned in an opening address that the growth of obesity-related diabetes, or so-called "diabesity", was set to bankrupt health budgets all over the world. Around 370 speakers and presenters at the six-day congress will discuss a range of issues, including scientific research on how the brain regulates energy and advances in the prevention and clinical management of obesity. The conference is being attended by academics and health professionals from Australia, Japan, the United States, Britain, Canada, Sweden, Indonesia and New Zealand. | |
| Posted by:Fleque Chinesh5792 |
| #10 yeah - I can just see the "Farmin B Hard franchises of Bob Mugabe's Weight Loss Center™" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-09-03 22:56 |
| #9 No probrem here, Yankee dogs... |
| Posted by: Kim Jong Il 2006-09-03 22:42 |
| #8 They're getting fatter which means they're getting richer. |
| Posted by: anonymous2u 2006-09-03 19:33 |
| #7 Well, Doritos are awfully cheap... |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-09-03 16:32 |
| #6 Yawn. First it was the fault of "affluent western nations" that everyone else was starving to death. We fed them, and now it's our fault that they're fat little porkers. WTF do they want. No need for gratitude, but some consistency would be nice. |
| Posted by: ST 2006-09-03 15:46 |
| #5 Don't even have to go back 100 years, Shieldwolf - in this country, never mind the rest of the world. Americans really did starve to death during the Great Depression. Not a huge number, as is usually the case in famines, but still.... In a world where millions of people go to bed really hungry (as in no food, not as in nothing to eat since 8 pm) most nights, and have no access to clean water, this is the LAST thing we should be worrying about. So of course these wacky-demics, who have never missed a meal - or even had to scramble to find one - decide this is the world's biggest problem. I think the wacky-demic lefties, and their fellow travelers the U I think we need a conference to address that pressing issue. Think I could get a grant? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-09-03 15:44 |
| #4 In a world that has been plagued by rolling famines throughout its history, I find the thought of obesity as a world health issue incredibley ironic. So we now have more fat people in the world than starving people, and we live long enough for obesity's negative effects to be clearly demonstrated in the individual. And people are upset by this? People, we now live long enough and well enough to actually worry about getting TOO much food! Even 100 years ago, that was an unthinkable problem : the world that existed back then had famines caused by war and drought that killed hundreds of thousands at a time. And now we have international conferences lecturing us on how big our butts are, and demanding that we had over all of our social planning powers to them so that they can correct us. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2006-09-03 14:53 |
| #3 "I knew an indian once..." Our poor people actually have better standards of living than the majority of the middle class in India. Which ought to tell you that the truly poor in India live in wretched conditions. I would LOVE to send our so-called poor there, so they could get a taste of what it is like to have really bad living conditions, with no safety net and no chance of opportunity. |
| Posted by: Texas Redneck 2006-09-03 14:52 |
| #2 "It is the number one health problem of the American poor." -I know that is true but it still amuses me to no end that "our poor" are fatter than most other nations' really rich folks. I knew an indian once who said that only in America will you see poor fat people. I knew what he meant, they were not truly poor by real standards. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2006-09-03 14:26 |
| #1 I knew already. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-09-03 14:07 |