SECOND OPINION:Next Saturday citizens will vote on a proposal to change the Irish Constitution. I will vote yes, even though the rights referred to in the referendum are as yet undecided.
The new article 42A.1 says: “The State recognises and affirms the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children and shall, as far as practicable, by its laws protect and vindicate those rights.”
These rights are not listed and, according to the referendum booklet delivered to each household, “it will be a matter for the courts, on a case-by-case basis, to identify the rights protected by this provision”. Does the new article refer to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified by Ireland 20 years ago? Not necessarily, according to the Referendum Commission and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, although these rights may provide a starting point.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to adequate food, defined by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights as food that is available, accessible, affordable, which meets children’s nutritional needs. Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognises the right to “the provision of adequate nutritious foods”. Cheap, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods, which cause overweight and obesity, are by definition inadequate.
Will the amendment, if passed, mean the State should intervene in the lives of children who are overweight or obese? Over the last 10 years several reports have described the crisis posed by weight problems as a time-bomb and public health disaster waiting to happen.
Obesity epidemic
Numbers of obese and overweight children have reached epidemic proportions. Growing up in Ireland: overweight and obesity among 9-year-olds, found that 23 per cent of boys and 30 per cent of girls are overweight or obese. Prevalence rates show pronounced social-class inequalities: 29 per cent of boys and 38 per cent of girls from semi- and unskilled households are overweight or obese. Data from the OECD Obesity Update 2012 show that, although the epidemic has slowed down in Italy and France, large increases in numbers of overweight and obese people were recorded in Ireland, Canada and the US.
No OECD country has made any progress in tackling the socio-economic gaps associated with obesity, which are widening every year. Poor people are just getting fatter.
Obesity is now the biggest threat to children’s health. Three times as many children are at risk of weight-related problems as are referred to the HSE every year for abuse and neglect. Immediate and long-term physical health risks include asthma, eczema and type2 diabetes. Being overweight or obese is detrimental to the mental and psychological health of young people, who are more likely to be depressed and bullied, and have higher levels of emotional and behavioural difficulties. Weight problems in childhood have permanent effects on the risk of illness and disease, even if the excess weight is shed in adulthood. Obesity and sedentary behaviour are independent risk factors for at least 35 chronic health conditions.
Food poverty
A child’s right to healthy food should supersede a parent’s right to feed their children whatever the parents like and the State should intervene in the best interests of the child. Proportionate responses could include compulsory, regular screening of all children from pre-school upwards, with follow-up behaviour change programmes for overweight and obese children provided by primary care teams. Intervention by the State cannot stop there. At least one in 10 Irish people is affected by food poverty and figures from the CSO last week show the deprivation rate is now 23 per cent compared to just over 17 per cent in 2009.
Poverty causes three-quarters of all childhood obesity and the onus is on the State to protect and vindicate children’s rights to healthy food. Parents should have enough money to feed their children properly, not just cheap and nasty, energy-dense, nutrient-poor food, which is all many families can afford. The annual cost of a comprehensive obesity prevention strategy is estimated by the OECD to be
€1 billion for Ireland, which can be easily raised through taxes on fat, sugar and alcohol. This strategy should include the rights of babies to be breastfed which halves their risk of obesity. Voting yes on Saturday is just the start of a campaign to protect and vindicate children’s right to food and many other rights. I await the first court challenge with interest and excitement.
JACKY JONESis a former HSE regional manager of health promotion