Obesity is a chronic disease affecting increasing numbers of children, teens and adults. Obesity rates among children in the U.S. have doubled since 1980 and have tripled for teens. About 17% of children aged 2 to 19 are considered obese, compared to over 35% of adults who are considered obese.
Earlier onset of type 2 diabetes, heart and blood vessel disease, and obesity-related depression and social isolation in children and teens are being seen more often by healthcare professionals. The longer a person is obese, the more significant obesity-related risk factors become. Given the chronic diseases and conditions associated with obesity and the fact that obesity is hard to treat, prevention is extremely important.
A primary reason that prevention of obesity is so vital in children is because the likelihood of childhood obesity persisting into adulthood increases as the child ages. This puts the person at high risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
Infants
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC, breastfed babies are less likely to become overweight. The CDC also reports that the longer babies are breastfed, the less likely they are to become overweight as they grow older. However, many formula-fed babies grow up to be adults of healthy weight. If your child was not breastfed, it does not mean that he or she cannot achieve a healthy weight.
Children and teens
Young people generally become overweight or obese because of poor eating habits and lack of physical activity. Genetics and lifestyle also contribute to a child's weight status.
Recommendations for prevention of overweight and obesity during childhood and teens include:
Gradually work to change family eating habits and activity levels rather than focusing on a child's weight.
Be a role model. Parents who eat healthy foods and participate in physical activity set an example so that a child is more likely to do the same.
Encourage physical activity. Children should have 60 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week. More than 60 minutes of activity may promote weight loss and provide weight maintenance.
Reduce "screen" time in front of the television and computer to less than 1 to 2 hours daily.
Encourage children to eat only when hungry and to eat slowly.
Don't use food as a reward or withhold food as a punishment.
Keep the refrigerator stocked with fat-free or low-fat milk, fresh fruit, and vegetables instead of soft drinks and snacks high in sugar and fat.
Serve at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily.
Encourage children to drink water rather than beverages with added sugar. These include soft drinks, sports drinks, and fruit juice drinks.
Adults
Many of the strategies that produce successful weight loss and maintenance help prevent obesity. Improving eating habits and increasing physical activity play a vital role in preventing obesity. Recommendations for adults include:
Keep a food diary of what you ate, where you ate, and how you were feeling before and after you ate.
Eat 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A vegetable serving is 1 cup of raw vegetables or 1/2 cup of cooked vegetables or vegetable juice. A fruit serving is 1 piece of small to medium fresh fruit, 1/2 cup of canned or fresh fruit or fruit juice, or 1/4 cup of dried fruit.
Choose whole grain foods, such as brown rice and whole wheat bread. Don't eat highly processed foods made with refined white sugar, flour, high-fructose corn syrup and saturated fat.
Weigh and measure food to be able to learn correct portion sizes. For example, a 3-ounce serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards. Don't order supersized menu items.
Learn to read food nutrition labels and use them, keep the number of portions you are really eating in mind.
Balance the food "checkbook." If you eat more calories than you burn you will gain weight. Weigh yourself on a weekly basis.
Don't eat foods that are high in "energy density," or that have a lot of calories in a small amount of food. For example, an average cheeseburger with and order of fries can have as much as 1,000 calories and 30 or more grams of fat. By ordering a grilled chicken sandwich or a plain hamburger and a small salad with low-fat dressing, you can avoid hundreds of calories and eliminate much of the fat intake. For dessert, have a serving of fruit, yogurt, a small piece of angel food cake, or a piece of dark chocolate instead of frosted cake, ice cream, or pie.
Simply reducing portion sizes and using a smaller plate can help you lose weight.
Aim for an average of 60 to 90 minutes or more of moderate to intense physical activity 3 to 4 days each week. Examples of moderate intensity exercise are walking a 15-minute mile, or weeding and hoeing a garden. Running or playing singles tennis are examples of more intense activities.
Look for ways to get even 10 or 15 minutes of some type of activity during the day. Walking around the block or up and down a few flights of stairs is a good start.
Two-thirds of Australian adults are now overweight (35.6%) or obese (31.3%)1, with levels of obesity having risen steadily in recent decades.2 The prevalence of overweight and obesity is rising in Australian adults, driven mainly by increased rates of obesity.1 (For more detail, see Trends.)
Obesity impacts
Excess weight and obesity have a negative effect on many systems in the body and accounted for 8.4% of the total burden of disease in Australia in 2015. This represents the impact of people dying early and living with illness due to conditions caused by excess weight, which was surpassed only by smoking (9.3%) as a modifiable risk factor for ill health.3 (For more detail, see Impacts.)
In addition to the health impacts of overweight and obesity, there are significant economic impacts. The cost of obesity in Australia has been estimated at more than $8.6 billion annually, including $3.8 billion in direct costs (such as healthcare) and $4.8 billion in indirect costs (such as lost productivity).4 These costs will continue to build in line with rising rates of overweight and obesity in Australia.
Obesity environment
There are few effective, long-term treatments for individuals to manage obesity.5 To date in Australia, interventions have largely employed individual-level approaches to influence behaviour change to prevent obesity.6 Rising obesity rates are not a failure of collective willpower, however, and an effective strategy to address the issue needs to recognise and address deeper causes. No country has successfully reversed its obesity epidemic because the systemic drivers of obesity continue largely unabated.7
Based on analyses of food supply and physical activity data in the United States8 and other high-income countries,9 researchers have concluded that increased kilojoule intake is the driving force behind rising obesity rates. Declines in work-related physical activity have been gradual and largely predated a rapid rise in obesity rates. On the other hand, food supply data shows an association between an increased supply of kilojoules and rising average body weight across many countries.10 Researchers say increased food energy supply alone is sufficient to explain increases in population weight.10
Overconsumption of kilojoules is associated with food systems that have become more industrialised, globalised, and dominated by large multi-national companies that produce ultra-processed foods.7 These products are based on inexpensive commodity ingredients, they are often highly palatable, cheap, and contain excessive amounts of energy, fat, sugar or sodium. A high intake of ultra-processed food and drinks is linked to poor diet quality and obesity and may contribute to micronutrient deficiencies by displacing more nutritious whole foods.7
Obesity prevention strategies
In this environment, systems-based policy actions have the potential to produce long-term changes to address obesity. Government measures such as regulating marketing of unhealthy food and drinks to children, front-of-pack warning labels, and fiscal policies such as taxes on sugary drinks can help to constrain supply-driven consumption of unhealthy foods.7
Various authorities have proposed evidence-based policies to address the obesity epidemic. These include the World Health Organization’s ‘Best Buys’ and other recommended interventions for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, which presents policy options to address unhealthy diet and disease areas including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.11 The World Health Organization also put forward recommendations in its Report of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity.12 In Australia, major reports have included Tipping the Scales13 (a public health consensus on key components of an obesity prevention strategy) and the Australian Food Policy Index14 (scorecard and priority recommendations for Australian governments to tackle obesity).
To assist with priority setting, a comprehensive multi-year study, Assessing Cost-effectiveness of Obesity Prevention Policies in Australia, conducted economic evaluations of 16 interventions and found they were all cost-effective approaches to addressing obesity in the Australian population.15 It was estimated that 11 of the interventions would not only produce cost-effective health benefits, but also save costs in the long-term. Interventions determined to produce cost savings in the long term included:
- increasing the price of alcohol*
- a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages
- kilojoule labelling at fast food outlets, and
- restrictions on price promotions of sugar-sweetened beverages.
The following sections of the Obesity Evidence Hub set out the evidence in three key areas for obesity prevention:
- tax and pricing
- food labelling
- marketing.
Across these areas, there are a range of promising policies that decision-makers could implement to deliver substantial health benefits as part of a comprehensive response to obesity.
* Alcohol makes a significant contribution to energy intake and high alcohol intake is linked to weight gain.