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The weight of Australian
children has increased markedly in recent decades, to the point where around
8 per cent are defined as obese (based on Body Mass Index), and 17 per cent
as overweight.
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While the prevalence of
obesity may have levelled off since the mid 1990s, it is still widely
considered to be too high.
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Childhood obesity has been
linked to a raft of physical and psychosocial health problems, including
type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as social stigmatisation
and low self-esteem.
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Simply put, obesity results
from an imbalance between energy consumed and expended. But the underlying
causes are complex and difficult to disentangle.
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An economic perspective
considers how individuals respond to changes in incentives, and how they
make decisions involving tradeoffs between different consumption and
exercise choices, including how they spend their time.
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Governments need to consider
a range of issues in addressing childhood obesity.
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Most of the costs of
obesity are borne by the obese themselves and their families.
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Market incentives to
provide information about the causes and prevention of obesity are weak,
creating a role for government. But unlike alcohol and tobacco
consumption, the externalities (spillovers on unrelated third parties)
associated with obesity are probably minor.
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Behavioural limitations
can influence how people use available information about preventing
obesity — even when it is available — and their responses to incentives
and tradeoffs. Children are particularly susceptible to these
limitations and have difficulty taking into account the future
consequences of their actions.
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Obesity prevalence varies
across the socioeconomic profile of the community, such that there can
be important distributional issues.
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The obese also consume a
disproportionate share of medical services, which, equity considerations
aside, adds to the costs of our public health system.
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There is only limited
evidence of interventions designed to address childhood obesity achieving
their goals.
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Notwithstanding the lack of
evidence of interventions reducing obesity, some studies suggest that they
can positively influence children's eating behaviours and levels of physical
activity, which in turn might influence obesity over time.
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The complex nature of the
problem suggests that policies need to be carefully designed to maximise
cost-effectiveness, and trialled, with a focus on evidence gathering,
information sharing, evaluation and consequent policy modification.
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