Forget ‘can do’ Kiwis, now it’s about ‘can eat’
New Zealand is fat and getting fatter – officially.
A new OECD ‘‘obesity update’’ shows that nearly one-in-three Kiwis is obese and the only fatter nations are the United States and Mexico.
New Zealand has been in third place since at least 2007, but then 26.5 per cent of adults were obese. Now, that rate has crept up to 30.7 per cent.
The report predicted all countries would see a ‘‘steady increase’’ in obesity until at least 2030.
The US, with a 38.2 per cent obesity rate, then Mexico, at 32.4 per cent, were the two most obese nations, while Japan then Korea – at 3.7 and 5.3 per cent respectively – were the least obese.
Christchurch bariatric surgeon Steven Kelly said: ‘‘Basically, it’s bad and it’s getting worse.’’
‘‘Obesity continues to increase at 0.5 per cent year on year, and it’s certainly not slowing up.’’
Some of his patients had BMIs of between 70 to 80. BMI anywhere over 30 is considered obese, while 40 or above is morbidly obese. ‘‘Every week now, I would see patient who is over 200 a kilograms. Ten years ago you would be lucky if you saw one 200kg person a year.’’
The Ministry of Health statistics - which are more recent than the OECD ones - state almost one in three people aged 15 or over were obese.
The reasons for New Zealand’s burgeoning waistlines were complex, but it was essentially a toxic combination of genetics and our environment, Kelly said.
For most of history, food scarcity and famines had kept civilisation lean, he said.
‘‘Now, we live with the same genes but have energy-dense readily-available food anywhere. And everybody overeats.’’
Public health Professor Tony Blakely from Otago University believed excess energy intake was the biggest reason behind the epidemic. ‘‘If we’re going to turn this around we do need to change the environment.’’
That meant incentivising or ‘‘nudging’’ the food industry to change the way foods were prepared to reduce their salt and sugar content, he said.
Manufacturers had put huge effort into reformulating popular products to remove sugar, fat or salt, Katherine Rich, chief executive of the Food and Grocery Council said.