Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. It is great to meet all of them. I have watched the programme when I get to do so and it is fantastic. There are so many issues I would like to discuss that I do not know where to start. On the parenting issue, I agree with the previous speakers. The parenting issue is important. We do not only need more education for children in this area in primary schools but parent education is also needed. There are parenting courses in existence but it is very hard to approach that subject without being somewhat patronising. We need to embrace the whole area of food education and parenting education generally for parents at large, pardon the pun. In general, childhood obesity cannot be blamed on society or on the child. It must be the parent who is primarily responsible for that. We need to extend the witnesses' points on education in primary schools to parenting education.

I would also be interested in this issue in terms of when students leave secondary school. That is when I felt I fell out of touch with physical education. It is then one becomes somewhat focused on other things but I know that depends on the individual.

The Count Me In idea is a great one. Is that one the witnesses' would envisage for fast-food type commercial enterprises? It would create practical difficulties for restaurants and their owners to adopt given that they may change their menus every day. I heard a good deal about that from the restaurants associations, etc.

On the issue of low fat products, and this is probably a question for Dr. Eva, one hears of the fat and low fat content of products but when I see a product with a low fat label, I think chemical explosion and I do not want to eat that food. I am at a level where I am nearly over-educated about food and I need to relax a bit. I am probably a bit obsessive which is another issue.

On the issue of GPs, in which I am interested, educating GPs is fine, but we need a stricter code whereby if somebody presents with these certain levels at a certain stage, the GP should be compelled to put the person into a programme, although that might be a bit harsh, but there should be some onus on GPs to address the issue. On the nutrition point Dr. Eva raised about GPs, I have four, five or six friends who are GPs and they do not have a clue about nutrition. They are the very ones who will go on crash diets and advocate ideas that are bonkers. Nutrition is something GPs do not know about and many speakers have addressed that point.

The difficulty in speaking at this stage is that previous speakers have made the points that I intended to make. There is also the psychological issue and I do not necessarily mean mental health but mental health can be very much enhanced by exercise. I mean the psychological issues as to why somebody is overweight. I have very personal experience of this and that is something that needs to be addressed. It is easy for Dr. Eva, with the greatest of respect, to say that we should take a person off medication but there are reasons, deep-rooted psychological reasons sometimes, as to why people are overweight. That is an issue we would also need to address.

Healthy food choices are difficult to get.