Health Minister Jim Wells has reiterated his commitment and drive to tackle the prevalence of overweight and obesity throughout our population as he published a two year report on progress against Northern Ireland’s obesity prevention strategy.
A Fitter Future for All 2012-2022, aims to:
* empower the population of Northern Ireland to make healthy choices
* reduce the risk of overweight and obesity related diseases
* and improve health and well-being, by creating an environment that supports a physically active lifestyle and a healthy diet.
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Health Minister Jim Wells MLA.[/caption]
The Minister said: “As we are now well aware, being overweight or obese can have a huge impact on an individual’s life. If we do not prevent the prevalence of overweight and obesity it will eventually put an unnecessary strain on health services, as well as reducing the quality of life, and indeed potentially the length of that life, for many people.
“Eating healthily, taking exercise, not smoking and reducing alcohol consumption therefore will all contribute to reducing demand on the health service, both in the short and the longer term, and enable funds to be redirected to frontline services. In addition a healthier lifestyle can do much to maintain or improve good physical health and mental wellbeing.”
DHSSPS launched ‘A Fitter Future for All’ in 2012 and good progress has been made.
For example: * In collaboration with the Department of Education, the Healthy Food for Healthy Outcomes – Food in Schools policy was published; * The Public Health Agency and the Department of Regional Development jointly fund the Active School Travel programme in 180 schools over three years; * The Public Health Agency’s Choose to Live Better public information campaign was launched in January 2013, and it is supported local initiatives; * The Food Standards Agency continues to work in a number of food and nutrition related areas including reformulation of processed foods, menus that display the calories and a new easy to read traffic light food labelling system.
The Minister concluded: “The impacts of addressing the issue of overweight and obesity across the life course of the population of Northern Ireland may take a number of years before they take effect, which is why it is so important to enable and inspire our children and young people to be more knowledgeable and responsible about the food they eat and the amount of exercise they do, so they can take those good habits into adulthood.
“I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all those who have supported this work to date and hope that the same level of drive and commitment will be applied to the next stage of the framework as it is faces its first formal review in 2015.”
The Update Report is available on the DHSSPS website at:
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