KEY POINTS:
It was "education" that convinced my husband to give up smoking and my children not to touch cigarettes. Why do you think education will not make people aware that overeating will affect their health and could eventually kill them?
Education is important but will not be sufficient
on its own to combat the entrenched epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes, which if unchecked will overwhelm our health system and the Government's budget. We need to remember that education was one of a number of tools used to combat smoking; regulations affecting the promotion, sale and cost of cigarettes are also considered significant in reducing tobacco use. We have created an environment where unhealthy food is more visible, more readily available and far more heavily promoted than healthy food. As a result, less-healthy choices have become the easy and convenient choices. The challenge is to turn this around and create an environment where healthy food is more visible and accessible.
Isn't obesity an addiction? Surely an orange or red dot on food packaging is not going to be enough to curb the urge?
It is true that children can become hooked on high sugar, high salt and high fat foods at an early age, and that is why it is important to encourage children to eat healthy food from an early age. A traffic light system which can help parents choose healthy rather than unhealthy food is just one of many tools that will be needed if we are to combat the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The traffic light system will also make it much easier and quicker for people to identify which foods to eat less of, without having to decipher more complex nutritional information on food labels.
It seems to me that a traffic light system on food packaging is just going to be another confusion for the consumers and make the cost of already-expensive food items increase again. Why not leave well alone for the sake of the majority of New Zealand's population who are not obese?
We are all going to have to bear the financial burden of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The cost of type 2 diabetes alone, if left unchecked, is predicted to increase to $1.78 billion by 2021 or 15 per cent of the entire health budget. If a traffic light system makes it easier for parents to distinguish relatively healthy from relatively unhealthy food for their families then this is one of the steps which will help to encourage more healthy eating in New Zealand.
I have read that obesity is a problem which will overwhelm the health system in the coming years. Instead of targeting the general population, would it not be best to target those most at risk? Fat people raise fat children. They're not hard to find.
If we are to seriously reduce the obesity epidemic we are going to have to change the whole environment in New Zealand and the overwhelming commercial pressures on people to eat unhealthy food. Poor diet is the leading cause of premature death and disease in New Zealand so by encouraging everyone to eat healthy food we will improve the health of all New Zealanders.
