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Health expenditure on diabetes to increase 400%
Friday, 3 October 2008Professor Vos, speaking at a Brisbane hearing of the inquiry into obesity, said that the increasing weight of Australians is so serious and difficult to address that it was likely to produce a three-fold increase in diabetes in the next 30 years, rising from 1.1 million cases to 3.6 million.
He said that the nation’s health expenditure on the disease would rise 400% in this same period.
Professor Vos, who heads the School’s Centre for Burden of Disease and Cost-effectiveness, said that the average Australian in 20 years' time was likely to be 8kg to 10kg heavier and even a concerted effort, using all the current obesity strategies, would probably only shave a couple of kilograms off that weight gain.
He also said a much-debated proposal to ban television advertising for junk food during children's viewing times also was likely to have only a "limited effect" on reducing childhood obesity.
Professor Vos’s evidence at the hearing came after Queensland Health’s Dr Linda Selvey, told the inquiry that Medicare should pay for weight loss programs, such as Weight Watchers, that help obese people trim down.
SPH’s Megan Forster said, “I think the good thing about Weight Watchers is that they do get public support.”
“They have got the marketing behind it.”
In Queensland, about 58 per cent of adults and 21 per cent of children are considered overweight or obese.
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