KEY POINTS:
Australia's child obesity epidemic has been grossly overstated, says a Sydney researcher who points to the problem being concentrated among the poor and certain ethnic groups.
But Associate Professor Jenny O'Dea's conclusions are questioned in New Zealand by experts who also say there is no evidence this country's epidemic is declining.
Professor O'Dea, of the University of Sydney, presented data to a conference there yesterday from a national sample of 8500 children aged 6 to 18.
It found the rate of obesity had grown to 6.3 per cent, from 5 per cent in 1995.
She concluded the child obesity rate was "not rocketing out of control" and appeared to be levelling off. "There's a suggestion the whole of Australia is at risk of obesity and that's been blown out of the water by this research."
The survey also showed Anglo-Saxon children from high-income families were at very low risk of obesity compared with Aboriginal, Pacific or Middle Eastern children from low-income families.
But Auckland University Associate Professor Robert Scragg, a researcher on the benchmark 2002 National Children's Nutrition Survey, said the Australian figures showed a relative increase in the obesity rate of more than 20 per cent in just over a decade, which was the opposite of a levelling off.
He - and Dr Robyn Toomath, of the Fight the Obesity Epidemic group - said Australia's child obesity rate was lower than New Zealand's because it was diluted by having a higher proportion of Europeans in the total population; their obesity rate tended to be lower than other ethnic groups' rates.
Professor Scragg said that although the 2002 New Zealand survey held the only national data for children, smaller, localised studies had shown increasing rates of obesity - something that was reflected in the doubling of adult obesity between 1977 and 2003.
He cited one study showing that 14-year-old children had increased in weight by around 6kg on average between 1985 and 2002, without any change in height.
He and Dr Toomath, a diabetes specialist at Wellington Hospital, are in no doubt that New Zealand is experiencing an epidemic of obesity among adults and children.
Dr Toomath said the only evidence internationally of the tide turning on the epidemic was a "faint suggestion" of a flattening of the graph for Swedish girls.
This was attributed to the ban on advertising to children, although the ban had been undermined by Swedish-language advertisements from other European countries being broadcast into Sweden.
"But they remain very cautious about the figures.
"Everywhere else, and for Swedish boys, overweight and obesity are increasing."
WEIGHTY ISSUE
Australia
* 6.3 per cent of those aged 6-18.
New Zealand
* Whole population: 9.8 per cent of children aged 5-14.
* NZ European and Other, girls: 6 per cent; boys: 4.7 per cent.
* Pacific, girls: 31 per cent.
* Maori boys: 15.7 per cent.
Sources: Ministry of Health; Sydney University.
