Public health advocates have consistently failed to get substantial Government support for their initiatives to tackle the obesity epidemic. And they only have themselves to blame.
Last week on ABC radio’s AM current affairs program the former chair of the National Preventative Health Taskforce lamented that the Government had failed to address obesity. In 2009, the Taskforce released a report titled Obesity in Australia: a need for urgent action which was supposed to be the springboard for Government action on the issue. Instead, the report was tossed onto a large pile of obesity reports and recommendations that have been ignored by our politicians.
What went wrong? Why did the then Government, which was favourably disposed to public health and disease prevention, fail to act? My guess is that it was the appalling quality of the report.