DEBATE on tackling obesity has begun and already there are concerns about how the strategy will be funded. A Green Paper was passed by the States yesterday.
The Health and Social Services Department will come back in less than a year with its final recommendations on the issue and it is keen for people to have an input.
Minister Peter Roffey said the States debate was a useful starting point.
‘The more it is spoken about, the more the dripping tap will drive things home,’ said Deputy Roffey. ‘I think the debate was shorter than it might have been because it came at the end of a long meeting, but it was a useful discussion - the beginning of the long process of making it a talked-about subject.’
Anybody can now have an input and people are urged to write to Dr David Jeffs with their thoughts.
‘The Green Paper contains a litany of measures that might help. The difficulty now will be looking at resource issues - what we can do to get the biggest bang for our buck.’
He added that, like other departments, Health did not yet know what its budget for 2008 would be so it was difficult to plan ahead.
There were huge parallels between obesity and smoking, he said.
Deputy Roffey added that there was a big gap in time between professionals saying there was a clear link between health and smoking and people taking that message seriously.
‘We’re hoping to learn from that and compress the time lag between the experts saying we now know there’s a huge side effect from obesity and that being ingrained in the public psyche.’
Deputy Roffey said the strategy was not about stopping people being fat.
‘But we genuinely believe that once the information is ingrained in people’s minds, it will help them to do something about it - not necessarily become super thin, but minimise the weight problems they might have.’
Article posted on 30th June, 2007 - 12.00am
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