Obesity epidemic 'just around the corner'
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Wednesday March 10 2010
DINGLE GP Dr Conor Brosnan believes that Ireland is facing an obesity epidemic due to high calorie food intake and lack of exercise.
"Unfortunately, in the western world obesity is a problem starting from small children right upwards across all ages. In essence, it's a surplus of calories intake which is not being burnt off. It's linked in to food, food quality and fat content as well as a relative lack of exercise compared with a generation ago. It starts from infancy and there are even doubts about infant formula feeding which may be over nutritious," he told The Kerryman.
"Factors contributing to lack of exercise include organised State transport to school and parents working. People aren't walking and, at the end of the day, the development of obesity is down to lack of exercise. This is being increasingly recognised and there's no great science behind it; it's kind of obvious," said Dr Brosnan said who pointed out that obesity leads to diabetes and heart disease.
"Diabetes is now manifesting itself in children as young as eight years of age in America. This was unimaginable a generation ago. These children have too much sugar in their systems. They're not burning it off. The pancreas is under pressure and when the pancreas begins to fail you don't produce insulin. When insulin isn't produced the sugar level in your blood goes up. The body doesn't need this high sugar level. This narrows and damages the arteries. It can also damage your kidneys and you can actually go blind as a result," he stated.
"Bypasses or stenting for narrowed arteries is happening to people in their twenties and thirties in the States. Parents burying their children is a reversal of the natural order. It's coming here and an obesity epidemic is just around the corner. Clinics in Dublin are seeing a massive explosion in obesity and diabetes. Apparently the average weight gain in adults in Ireland in the past 10 years is around 10 kgs. There's some evidence that surgery can relieve some of the problems but that's coming in at the end. We need to look at preventative methods," Dr Brosnan said.
