Pulling together to fight obesity

A meeting of prominent medical figures is taking place this week in a bid to tackle the growing problem of obesity

Exercise doesn’t have to involve large amounts of pain and hardship as the shows claim, says Dr Colin Dunlevy, who works with the obesity service at St Colmcille’s hospital in Loughlinstown, Dublin.

Many adults take their ideas of what is required to lose weight from the dramas unfolding in popular TV weight-loss programmes, he points out. “This invariably involves pain and hardship and being dragged over endless hours on the ‘dreadmill’, or being ‘bootcamped’ through fields and hedgerows.”

Dr Dunlevy says this notion of exercise often leads to early failure or complete avoidance by the novice.

“The tragedy of this prevailing notion of exercise is that it is completely unnecessary. There is good evidence that people who are trying to improve their weight profile and sedentary behaviour benefit from much easier types of exercise.”

When researchers looked at the health benefits enjoyed by people who are getting the recommended minimum of 2.5 hours of exercise a week, they found that it made no difference whether they got their workout in short spurts or over longer sessions. “Little and often” are the key rules for exercising to lose weight, he says.

Dr Dunlevy is one of a number of prominent medical figures who will address the inaugural meeting of the Association for the Study of Obesity on the Island of Ireland to be held in Dublin this week.

The association was set up only this year with the aim of promoting awareness of obesity and providing a forum for Irish researchers to share their work and develop new strategies. The background is one of soaring levels of obesity and a patchy implementation of measures to tackle the problem, for instance as recommended in the 2005 taskforce on obesity.

In his paper, Prof Richard Layte of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) sets out the shocking figures surrounding obesity in children. In 2009, 26 per cent of nine year olds were overweight or obese. Obesity is inversely related to social class, with working class girls almost 40 per cent more likely to be overweight than their peers in professional households.

Even at the age of three, 25 per cent of children are obese or overweight, he points out.

However, parents can be the agents of change in tackling their children’s weight issues, according to Belgian research to be presented at the seminar.