Childhood obesity rise has Commons committee urging feds to join the battle

The epidemic of childhood obesity in Canada needs an Olympic effort to reverse the catastrophic trend suggesting today’s kids won’t live as long as their parents, a House of Commons committee says.

In a report, Healthy Weights for Healthy Kids, the Commons health committee calls on the federal government to take action in order to stop the rising incidence of overweight and obese children by the time of the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

The situation has reached epidemic proportions as obesity rates among kids have risen almost threefold (to 8% from 3%) between 1978 and 2004. More than one in four (26%) Canadians aged 2 to 17 are now considered either overweight or obese, the report states, citing Statistics Canada figures.

Even so, polling shows that only 9% of parents believe their child is overweight.

“For the first time in recorded history, today’s younger generation will live shorter lives than their parents, yet parents … do not recognize the problem,” said Conservative MP Rob Merrifield, the committee’s chairman. “We are killing our kids with kindness.”

Obesity leads to increased rates of diabetes, heart attacks and other serious health impacts down the road. The health costs already are estimated to exceed $4.3 billion a year, Merrifield said.

The committee called for a comprehensive public awareness campaign on issues such as healthy weights, food choices and physical activity.

It ties its short-term 2010 goal as an opportunity to dramatically boost awareness and shift people’s perception in the same way the public mindset accepted seatbelts in the 1970s.

By 2020, childhood obesity rates should drop to at least 6%, the report recommends.

It also calls for the elimination of trans fats from foods, easy-to-read, front-of-package nutritional information and several other initiatives to benchmark and monitor issues such as physical activity and body-size measures.

The report has no costing for its proposals, but committee member and NDP MP Penny Priddy argued that the costs of letting the problem grow would be far higher.

The report was immediately praised by organizations such as the Canadian Medical Association and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Source : www.edmontonsun.com