Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 2 May 2018
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs
Tackling Childhood Obesity: Discussion (Resumed)
9:30 am
Mr. D.O. O'Connor:
To return to Deputy Neville's point, it is not necessarily a socioeconomic issue. There are different challenges in each of the groups. Knowledge is critical. We also do a lot of this among adults where there is a slightly different approach. When we talk about the healthy diet, our approach is one of encouraging people to eat healthily two days a week, rather than seven days, or to encourage people to start off with one day a week, to choose brown bread over white or porridge over cereal. In middle class families, when a child who has his or her own money goes into a store to make a choice, we would encourage him or her to buy an apple or a banana rather than a bar of chocolate. The approach is about educating people about making those simple choices, giving them the power and knowledge to make those simple decisions and choose those habits. Returning to Senator Noone's point, it will take time. We have missed a generation in educating people about the importance of this and we have to do it bit by bit. There is only one way to eat an elephant which is one bite at a time.