Labour MEP calls for urgent action on child obesity

Labour Marlene Mizzi reiterated her concerns over the gravity of the problem of childhood obesity in Europe, a critical health issue for Malta, on International World Health Day.

He reaction came in light of a reply from EU commissioner for health and food safety Vytenis Andriukaitis, to two of her questions on European practices in tackling childhood obesity among Member States.

Mizzi asked the Commission to throw fresh light on the different practices among member states to tackle childhood obesity and on the implementation stage of the state-led action plan on childhood obesity (2014-2020).

“Obesity is definitely not a unique problem for Malta and sadly the number of people suffering from this condition is alarmingly high across Europe,’’ Mizzi said.

Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980, with more than 600 million adults and 42 million children under the age of five being obese or overweight.

Mizzi said that Maltese children were among the most overweight not only in Europe, but also worldwide and that extra efforts were needed to prevent the phenomenon from escalating further.

In his reply, Andriukaitis said that under the strategy for Europe on Nutrition, Overweight and Obesity-related Health Issues, the EC coordinated an action-oriented partnership involving all the 28 EU state.

“Its aim is to share best practices and discuss solutions for addressing challenges such as childhood obesity. In February 2014, the High Level Group agreed on a voluntary Action Plan to reduce Childhood Obesity. The monitoring system being put in place with the collaboration of the WHO will generate evidence on the implementation of good practice.”

Andriukaitis said that the European Health Programmes have also co-financed projects which tackled nutrition and physical activity in general and childhood obesity in particular. “The Commission continues to provide support to the member states in preventing childhood obesity through a Joint Action, scheduled to start in mid-2015, as foreseen in the Commission work programme 2014 of the Health Programme adopted in May of the same year.”

Reacting to this reply, Mizzi said that not only was obesity snowballing in Europe, but like some other European countries, Malta was facing a crisis that will affect children’s health and wellbeing, as well as the country’s health spending and budgets to react to the long-term complications of obesity, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and mental health problems, among others.

“Childhood obesity is a complex problem that concerns not only individual member states, but Europe as a whole. Unfortunately at this stage there have been no comprehensive measures at European level to fight this health problem. Obesity is and will remain one of the most important public health issues in the years to come, thus requiring urgent European actions to address the problem of obesity systematically across all member states and across all policies concerned.”