Tag: obesity

The European Commission plans to combat many obesity and nutrition-linked lifestyle diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and certain cancers, by reducing the content of sugar, salt or trans-fat in processed food without using additives.

Europe needs to find new ways of tackling obesity as traditional prevention measures clearly appear to be failing, according to EU policymakers and health experts. In just a few decades, obesity is expected to weigh heavily on Europe's healthcare systems and become the cause of many other illnesses.

The United States is often ahead of Europe when it comes to the newest technology but also unhealthy lifestyles. Therefore, the EU could look to the US for solutions on how to deal with obesity, says James O. Hill.

Cuts in healthcare budgets today might reduce public expenses in the short-run but lead to higher costs in the future, including on obesity-related diseases like diabetes, warned the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), a think tank.

European efforts to make farming more environmentally friendly have done little to address its growing ecological footprint abroad, says a UN expert who calls for a shift to more sustainable consumption.

Although Europeans have become healthier and their life expectancy has improved in recent decades, major differences persist in the provision of care services and the presence of risk factors for health across the continent. 

Clearer food labelling and awareness campaigns can help prevent an obesity epidemic in Europe, Liberal Romanian MEP Magor Imre Csibi told EurActiv in an interview. However, he said taxing high-fat foods is not part of the solution.

As childhood obesity becomes increasingly common, the EU executive is proposing to allocate €90 million of Community funding per year to help member states finance the distribution of free fruit and vegetables in schools as of autumn 2009.

Obesity is not a matter of individual choices but rather a systemic problem requiring changes to the food production and consumption environments which are making us fat, according to Philip James, the chair of the International Obesity Task Force. 

Eleven major food and beverage companies, including Nestlé and Coca-Cola, have jointly pledged to change the way they advertise to children. The commitment follows Commission calls to restrict advertising of unhealthy foods as childhood obesity is rapidly increasing in the EU.

Low income households are increasingly turning to cheap packaged and fatty food, warns Jaap C. Seidel, a nutrition and health professor, saying EU agricultural subsidies should to be turned round to make fruit and vegetables more affordable.

An EU-supported initiative brought top chefs into schools across Europe in an effort to spark children's interest in healthy food and cooking.

Sedentary modern lifestyles and over-eating have raised obesity to the number one public health challenge of the 21st century, with rapidly increasing childhood obesity of particular concern to western nations. The Commission has given the food industry and advertising sector until 2010 to clean up its act.

European food production SMEs have a contribution to make in the EU's fight against obesity, argues Ludger Fischer of UEAPME, calling for the right to participate in the EU stakeholders' platform for action on diet, physical activity and health, to which the organisation is currently denied access.

Members of the EU obesity platform have decided to launch an initiative to motivate staff in their own organisations and member companies to take more exercise and eat healthier food.

The EU platform on Diet, Physical Activity and Health still lacks representatives of the physical-activity side of the obesity problem, says Dr Gernot Wainig.

Nutritious school lunches together with a ban on sweets and sugary drinks in school can help reduce the risk of obesity in children, argues a study from Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.

In many European countries, obese patients have no access to specialised advice in obesity management and depend mostly on untrained general practitioners to deal with their condition, a survey has revealed.

A Parliament report calls on member states to inform people from an early age about the consequences of a poor diet and to ensure that schools have enough sports facilities.

The use of 'traffic lights' to identify products that are high, medium or low in salt, sugar and fat is one of the schemes under discussion for unified EU food labelling. Industry, however, opposes the proposal.

Health Commissioner Kyprianou acknowledges and applaudes some industry initiatives in the fight against obesity but says that if self-regulation does not work, legislative action will follow.

A survey of Europeans' physical-activity habits shows that only 15% are active in sports and that the average EU citizen spends more than six hours per day seated.

Obesity "must be tackled across policies with a special focus on children and young people".

A forecast report on UK obesity trends states that a third of adults and a fifth of children will be obese by 2010, resulting in more people suffering from related diseases and an increase in healthcare costs.