Obesity: a burden society can't afford to shoulder

• Editorial
• August 22, 2008
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A new report says Australians are getting fatter and the consequent health and financial costs are rising exponentially. This cannot continue.

WERE he alive today, Thomas Malthus may have felt compelled to eat his hat. The 18th century British political economist and demographer predicted that the world would one day face starvation as growth in food supply failed to keep up with population growth. In affluent nations, at least, quite the opposite has proved to be the case. It has been well documented that Australians — children and adults — are getting so much fatter and at such an exponential rate that it has been deemed a crisis.

Earlier this year the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, an acknowledged leader in research into diabetes and obesity and their related complications, such as stroke and heart disease, estimated that 4 million Australians are now obese and another 5 million are sufficiently heavy to be classified as overweight and at risk of joining those classified as obese. It argued the inexorable rise of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease was an indication that this society is effectively gorging itself to death.

In its June report, Fat Bomb, which was submitted to the Federal Government's inquiry into obesity, the institute argued the rise in obesity in middle-aged Australians alone would result in another 700,000 cardiovascular-related hospital admissions over the next 20 years that will cost nearly $3 billion in hospital expenditure.

Today, as reported in our news pages today, a new study by Access Economics of the economic costs of obesity (excluding those defined as "overweight") has found that the incidence of obesity among adults and children is continuing to rise at an alarming rate. It estimates that in 2008, 3.71 million people, or about 17.5% of the population were obese, a 14.5% increase on its 2005 figures. By 2025, as much as 18.3% of the population could be obese. Continued...

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