Unless the issue of children's health is tackled as a matter of urgency, the Republic could be storing up serious problems for itself in the years ahead. This is according to the chairman of a specialist subcommittee contributing to the Department of Health and Children strategy for the nation's health.
Prof Ivan Perry chairs the health subcommittee which will contribute to the national strategy, due to be published before the end of the summer. The strategy is seeking to pinpoint lifestyle trends which need to be addressed. There were some "ludicrous" examples of how children were being targeted by international conglomerates whose sole aim was to make as much profit as possible, according to Prof Perry, head of UCC's department of epidemiology and public health.
He cited a crisp manufacturer which offered tokens for schoolbooks with its products.
"The marketing of fast foods and junk foods containing high levels of salts, fats and sugars is now relentlessly aimed at children and if we don't do something about the health of our young people now, then as a nation, we are storing up trouble and we are going to have major problems ahead with major implications for the economy.
"Too often we think of health provision in terms of hospital care for the ill, but it should be much more than that. I see health care as a societal/political issue with a small `p'. Pouring money into the health services is not going to improve the health of the population. We have to think about how we should organise ourselves to provide that care," he continued, "using a sectoral approach which looks at poverty and educational disadvantage, for instance, and we have to look seriously at the health of our children."
Prof Perry said that in an in creasingly litigious age, schools were becoming more concerned about the consequences of children running in the playgrounds. "I have personal experience of a school which discourages children from running in the yard in case one of them should fall and the school is sued by the parents.
"If that trend were to become the norm . . . the question of what exercise is avail able to young people during their school day arises, and this at a time when they are watching more television than ever and eating the kind of foods that are causing alarming levels of child obesity. I think we should hear from the Department of Education as to what its attitude is towards promoting sport and exercise in the schools."
According to the latest figures available from the US, Prof Perry said, children there watched television for an average of three hours a day while in Britain they spent two hours a day in front of the television screen. There was no reason to suppose, he added, that Irish children were any different.
"In the case of British children, the viewing pattern means they watch some 18,000 adverts every year and a very high proportion of them during peak viewing times for children are aimed at promoting junk foods that are smiling and colourful and attractive but which contain ingredients that are ultimately bad for their health.
" I don't think we are paying attention to controls. In some Scandinavian countries, these companies are not allowed to target children under 12. It's not enough to lecture people about losing weight if we are going to allow society to be organised in such a way that we are actually promoting weight gain in childhood. Childhood is when we should be sowing the seeds of healthy behaviour," Prof Perry said.
His call for more awareness of the obesity problem in children came as health boards were gearing up for National Healthy Eating Week which began yesterday.
In its bulletin on the subject of healthy eating, the Southern Health Board said obesity was becoming a problem because the average fat intake in men and women was 37 per cent, whereas the dietary recommendation was for 35 per cent, and carbohydrate intake at 46 per cent was lower than the recommended 50 per cent.
The board is organising events with a healthy emphasis during the week and is offering tips for healthy eating.
Dr Perry's health subcommittee is examining ways by which the doctor/patient partnership can be improved through the use of new technology and how modern communications can be employed to facilitate the flow of information.