Curbing obesity: prevention and treatment

This viewpoint is written by two middle-aged women who have been working with obese children and their families since ∼20 years, one as a psychologist and the other as a paediatrician. As we have been treating obesity in children, our focus has not been prevention. The thoughts that follow originate not only from what we have been studying and observing in our contacts with obese children and their parents, but also from what we have been learning as mothers of our now teenage children.Obesity develops when a genetically sensitive person comes in a favourable environment. Our genes are not changing rapidly, whereas obesity has emerged as a frequent and growing problem, from young age on, everywhere in the world. The United States is on top of the list, followed by those developing countries that are making the transition to more wealth. But also in Europe the same evolution is observed. When reflecting on what has changed in our environment and how to curb this evolution, one ends up with thinking politics.Our thoughts, described below, are 3-fold. On a macro-level, politicians will have to invest in new rules and regulations as well as in large programs which will be the only way to streamline society with all its different and conflicting pressure groups. Secondly, serving healthy food and facilitating a healthy life style should be mission statements in socialising agencies like schools, sport clubs, and summer camps. Finally, on a micro-level, all of us can model a healthy living attitude which can influence the people and especially the parents and their children in the near environment. We will give now some examples below.It is clear that an active lifestyle is as important as healthy eating in the prevention of obesity. Together with modification in food consumption patterns sedentarism …