SA women are fatties

2002-08-13 14:11

South Africa's women are on par with their American counterparts when its comes to being overweight or obese, a leading expert in the field of obesity said on Tuesday.

Statistics showed that about 50 percent of South Africa's women were overweight or obese, said Dr Tessa van der Merwe, a senior consultant physician and endocrinologist at the Johannesburg Hospital.

She told reporters and medical personnel in Johannesburg about 40 percent of the country's women suffered from abdominal obesity.

Women, no matter what their build or height is, should have a waist line of 88 cm or less, otherwise they were considered to be overweight in the abdominal area, she said.

Van der Merwe was speaking at a press conference hosted by pharmaceutical company Roche.

She said about 30 percent of South African men were obese or overweight.

Often people who were overweight blamed it on bad genes and this was true to a certain degree, Van der Merwe said.

Between 25 and 40 percent of fat is because of genes, but between 60 and 75 percent of fat is due to the environment, such as a lack of exercise and eating take-away food all the time.

She warned that obesity, now recognised as a chronic disease and classified as an epidemic, was on the increase throughout the world.

According to the World Health Organisation, in 1995 there were an estimated 200 million obese adults across the globe. Another 18 million children under the age of five were classified as overweight.

In 2000, the number of obese adults increased to more than 300 million.

Van der Merwe said it was estimated that by 2010, 90 percent of the United States population would be obese.

Studies had shown that the body mass of US military recruits had increased by 12kg since 1863, and this was because of fat and not muscle, she said.

Van der Merwe said research was showing that more and more teenagers were developing type 2 diabetes because of obesity.

She said that in the past type 2 diabetes was more than often seen in people older than 45, but now it was at much younger ages.

A third of the world's 18 year olds are overweight.

About 90 percent of diabetic patients have type 2 diabetes, and between 80 and 90 percent of these patients are obese.

Type 2 diabetes, formerly named non-insulin-dependent, results from the body's inability to respond properly to the action of insulin produced by the pancreas.

Type 1 diabetes, formerly known as insulin-dependent, sees the pancreas failing to produce the insulin which is essential for survival. This form develops most frequently in children and adolescents.

Van der Merwe also warned the chances of fat children being thin adults were not great.

"Children do not grow out of it (fat), they grow into it."

Overweight children aged between three and five have a 24 percent chance of becoming obese if not one of their parents are obese, and these children have a 62 percent chance of being obese if one of their parents are obese.

She called on South Africans to start reading labels before buying food, because often people thought they were eating healthy, but the food was filled with fat and sodium.

"We have got to get the public to read food labels to see what they are eating."

Van der Merwe also said that besides modifying diets, people should get about four hours of exercise a week, change their way of thinking such as becoming less stressed, and where necessary take drugs that have been medically tested.

She advised South Africans not to order items that promised weight reduction such as on television, as these goods had not gone through all the necessary tests and trials.

Van der Merwe also advised against ordering weight reduction medication and solutions from across the counter. Any medication should be obtained after seeing a doctor.

Ordering weight reduction medication from over the counter has been scrapped in Europe and America.

Meanwhile, Roche has announced an award to internationally recognise excellence in both medical and consumer overweight and obesity reporting.

A prize of US$7500 (about R79000) will be presented to both winners. The entries, which include print, broadcast and electronic, must have been published or aired between May 31, 2002 and February 28, 2003.

February 28 is the deadline for the competition. What do you think...are we a nation of fatties? Discuss this issue...

- SAPA