New research announced by safefood today revealed that despite two out of three adults on the island of Ireland being overweight, only 40 per cent of adults now classify themselves as such. This indicates that thousands of Irish men and women are still failing to recognise that they themselves are overweight, and are putting their health at increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. The research was conducted as part of safefood’s ongoing Stop the Spread campaign to tackle overweight and obesity.
Commenting on the findings of the research, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, director, human health and nutrition, safefood said: “While it’s encouraging to see that consumers are beginning to better understand the problem of overweight and obesity and the associated health problems, as a population we’re not identifying the issue of overweight as applying to us as individuals. The next step is to move from increasing awareness among consumers to actually their changing behaviour and this now seems to be beginning to happen.”
The Stop the Spread campaign is aimed at alerting people to the fact that being overweight is now the ‘norm’, and tackling the common excuses for excess weight around the middle such as middle-age spread, height, or genetics. Having a waist size greater than 32 inches for a woman or 37 inches for a man is a clear indication that a person is carrying excess weight.
Useful tips and information on weight loss can be found on the Stop the Spread pages on the safefood website www.safefood.eu or by calling safefood on 1850 404567.
