Dr. Sinead Murphy:

I would not like to put numbers on it but the effect would be dramatic. The little boy to whom I referred just happened to be lucky to hit upon a motivated public health nurse who knew what she was talking about and had the confidence to deliver the message compassionately. There needs to be training of the people in post but that would not cost very much money. It also needs to be equitable because, at the moment, an enormous number of children are referred to a hospital service because there is no community dietician. There needs to be significant investment, not only in public health nurses but in all healthcare professionals in the community. We would need to gather the evidence but I have no doubt that the evidence would be overwhelmingly in favour of it and that there would not be a great cost relative to the gain. The current cost of childhood obesity is enormous and will not change unless we do something about it. It would be a really positive measure.