AMA working hard to keep obesity high on public health agenda
AMA Vice President, Dr Stephen Parnis, writes in this week’s Australian Medicine about the need for a national strategy to deal with obesity.
With increasing numbers of people becoming dangerously overweight or obese the risk of major health problems for Australian’s such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and a number of cancers also increases. Currently two-thirds of Australian adults and a quarter of children are overweight or obese.
Dr Parnis outlines a number of strategies that could help prevent obesity and its flow on effects on health. They include better marketing regulation, improved health literacy and more effective town planning to encourage physical activity. He adds that these are a few important and practical steps that we could take right now, to improve health and reduce future health costs.
