Childhood obesity problem unites Pacific, Africa

NOUMEA, New Caledonia—The urgent global public health problem of childhood obesity will bring the Director-General of the Pacific Community, Dr. Colin Tukuitonga, to West Africa this week.

Tukuitonga will chair the final African Region Consultation for the World Health Organisation’s Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity in Accra, Ghana, on Oct. 22 to 23.

According to WHO, 42 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2013.

In addition to increased future risk of obesity, premature death and disability in adulthood, obese children experience breathing difficulties, increased risk of hypertension, early markers of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and psychological effects, WHO data indicates.

Tukuitonga is one of 15 members of the WHO commission that is tasked with producing a report specifying which approaches and combinations of interventions are likely to be most effective in tackling childhood and adolescent obesity in different contexts around the world.

“In the Pacific Islands region, we’re raising the most obese generation in our history, with almost 25 percent of boys and 20 percent of girls aged between 13 and 15 classified as obese, and sadly this is a pattern we see repeated in other parts of the world, including Africa,” Tukuitonga said.

“The commission’s draft report states that the health, social and societal consequences of childhood obesity merit urgent action and affects both developed and developing economies.

“I look forward to hearing more about the African perspective, including some of the solutions being driven by governments, civil society, non-government actors and the private sector which will inform the Commission’s final report, and also to sharing the Pacific experience,” he said.

The Draft Final Report of the Commission is open for comment from relevant stakeholders until Nov. 13, 2015, before its final report is due in December: http://www.who.int/end-childhood-obesity/final-report-for-comment/en/.

Tukuitonga was also part of the WHO commission hearings held earlier this year in the Philippines and New Zealand.  The commission is co-chaired by Sir Peter David Gluckman, chief science adviser to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Dr. Sania Nishtar, founder and president of Heartfile, Pakistan.

Public health is a focus area of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the principal scientific and technical agency supporting development in the Pacific region since 1947.

The vast Pacific Islands region spans around 36 million square kilometers of ocean, an area larger than the African continent. Yet only 1.5 percent of this total area is land—a fact recognized by Pacific leaders when they adopted the term “Large Ocean Island States.” (SPC)