Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House to debate this important issue. I will refer again to some of the statistics previous speakers cited. Almost one quarter of Irish adults are obese and a further 37% are overweight. According to the Irish longitudinal study on ageing led by Trinity College Dublin, to which the Minister referred, four out of five people aged over 50 years are overweight or obese. According to the Irish Heart Foundation, one in ten children aged between five and 12 years is overweight and a further one in ten of this age cohort is obese. In total, 22% of children aged between five and 12 years are overweight or obese. In just one year, Ireland's only dedicated childhood obesity treatment programme, which is located at Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin, experienced a 400% increase in referrals of children under five years.

The annual cost of obesity has been mentioned but is worth repeating. Of the estimated cost of €1.13 billion, 35% or almost €400 million is attributed to direct health care costs, with the remaining €728 million made up of indirect costs such as reduced productivity and absenteeism.

The Minister referred to a research project undertaken by the World Health Organization. A study carried out by safefood Ireland, which was carried out in 2012 and is, therefore, somewhat out of date, found that the main drivers of direct costs are drugs, hospital inpatient and day case care, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, stroke and gallbladder disease. People would very much like to avoid all of these diseases.

The overwhelming influences on obesity - in 99% of the obese population - are environmental and include marketing, advertising, increased portion sizes, accessibility and availability of foods and food facilities and increased automation and car use, among other factors. Long-term weight loss is extremely difficult to achieve. Having visited Weight Watchers on a couple of occasions, I found it slightly depressing to discover that adults who remain in conventional weight loss programmes can realistically expect a maximum weight loss of only 10%. According to the World Health Organization, nearly all Irish adults are likely to be overweight 15 years from now.

On the key causes of obesity, one article in a recent series in the medical journal, The Lancet, identified a clear primary culprit, namely, a powerful global food industry which is producing more processed, affordable and effectively marketed food than ever before.

I fully concur with Senator van Turnhout that one does not have to visit many supermarkets to recognise the difficulties experienced by people on low incomes given the ease with which one can fill a shopping trolley with cheap, pre-produced pizzas and other types of unhealthy foods that are loaded with sugar. Critics have concluded that the problem lies with the food industry, particularly the growth of processed foods, recipes that are high in sugar, salt and fat, and large portion sizes, poor nutritional labelling and aggressive marketing of unhealthy food, especially to children.

Scientific findings indicate that the "eat less, move more" approach is not necessarily a common sense solution to the obesity problem. Despite the rise in gym membership and an increasing focus on exercise, weight problems continue to climb. It appears that while exercise is important to maintaining one's health, it is not necessarily a weight loss solution. According to Margo Wootan, the director of nutrition policy at the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, "We are not going to exercise our way out of this obesity problem." Weight is not a matter of calories in and calories out. As Senator Byrne pointed out, foods with high levels of protein, fibre and other natural elements take longer to digest and result in lower, longer spikes in blood sugars. On the other hand, processed foods are easier to digest and result in high spikes in blood sugars. The liver is unable to process this sugar effectively and therefore produces insulin which turns it into fat. High levels of insulin can also block the brain from receiving the signal that one is full. I understand this is known as "insulin resistance". Unfortunately, foods with reduced fat and calories tend to have higher levels of sugar and other sweeteners.This is not often understood. People fill their trolleys with low-fat foods, not understanding that, in actual fact, the additional sugars in those foods can be doing them more harm.

Sugar is highly addictive. In a study at the University of Texas, 43 cocaine-addicted rats were given the choice between cocaine and sugar water over a 15-day period, whereby 40 of them chose the sugar. Sugar is, in fact, eight times more addictive than cocaine. Artificial sweeteners increase the appetite as the body expects sugar that is not coming. They add to our sugar problems rather than decreasing them, which brings us back to the argument that we should not be drinking "diet" drinks.

Sugar is also added to foods other than sweets and desserts, such as pasta sauces, salad dressings, cereals, yoghurts, ketchup and fruit juices. Kids today have grown up surrounded by these highly addictive foods. I never saw pizza when I was growing up, and now it is sold in newsagents, supermarkets, petrol stations, chemists and even clothes shops. We see ads on TV and signs as we walk down the street. We have celebrities endorsing soft drinks and cartoon characters on cereal boxes. Many unhealthy foods are targeted directly at children and sold in lunch-box sized portions.

We need to regulate how we market food to our children and should not be encouraging children to develop unhealthy habits and buying patterns that follow them into their adult years. To successfully address obesity, people must consume fewer calories, which means eating less food or, at least, different types of food. This implies less industry profit. The most processed foods with the highest profit margins are often made by the biggest industry players with the most skin in the game, so to speak. We need to try to improve the quality of our people's food choices by ensuring that they are informed and have more access to healthy foods. We must also ensure that companies are disincentivised from providing unhealthy foods, for example, by requiring them to pay for any negative eventualities they cause. Fizzy drinks companies should not be welcome in our schools or sports clubs, no more than machines selling cigarettes, beer or vodka would be. They cause addiction and cancer, and they continually manipulate our children through their advertising and their attraction.

Like Senator van Turnhout, I have previously called for a ban on soft drinks machines in schools. I received comments that schools are actually receiving much-needed resources by having these drinks machines. That is something we have to deal with. I have also considered the issue of a sugar tax, which has come up before the finance committee in successive budgets. The one thing that has always put me off the idea is that the people who will end up paying it are those who can least afford to do so - the poorest in Irish society. I favour the imposition of a sugar tax only if it is ring-fenced to deliver healthy school meals in areas where children live in poverty. We have one in ten children going to school hungry.

In conclusion, I welcome the consultation process in which the Minister has engaged, although I hope he is not going to spend too long consulting. There is sufficient evidence internationally and in Ireland to tell us what the problem is. We just need to get around to the solution.