Malta Beginning To Take Obesity Seriously

You might have seen the story about the EU obesity survey that placed the tiny Island of Malta in No.1 place in the obesity stakes. Well it seems that the Minister of Health saw it too and has announced that he is coming up with a “national platform” to face up to the obesity problem.

The Health Minister Louis Deguara explained that the platform would be designed so that plans could be developed, implemented and monitored so that obesity could be tackled and which would give obese and overweight people more control of their weight and health.

The Minister said that he wanted to reverse obesity trends that were apparent in Malta and said that he felt that with a bit of work the ongoing childhood obesity problem could be lessened greatly over the following 5 to 10 years.

The Minister who was present at a conference on obesity in Istanbul said that 2/3 of men in Malta were overweight or obese and that over 50% of Maltese women were too. The statistic are worrying as in 2002 only 32% of men and 44% of women could claim to have a BMI of less than 25.

The figures were also self reported which always adds a margin of error in favour of the overweight people as they tend to under report their weight and thus the problem could really be bigger.

The Minister also noted that less than 20% of men and only 10% of women were involved in regular physical exercise and most of these were in higher socio-economic groups.

Malta is in the middle of the Mediterranean and has an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as plenty of fish and therefore there is no reason for the Maltese to have an unhealthy diet, but the emergence of fast food and changing eating habits is obviously taking its toll.