“Research needed on obesity”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33110, 28 December 1972, Page 10

“Research needed on obesity”

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN. Dec. 27. More research needs to be done on obesity in New Zealand, according to a Christchurch survey on grossly overweight women published in the latest “Medical Journal.”

The authors of the survey, Mr P. G. Harty 7 , a final-year medical student, and Professor D. W. Beaven, of the Christchurch Clinical School, suggest that more money should be put into studies on New Zealand children to assess family, environmental, and cultural factors which may influence the development of obesity in young children, leading to gross obesity in adult life. The study, which was a retrospective survey of 61 grossly 7 overweight women admitted to the medical unit at Princess Margaret Hospital over the last six years, has indicated that most women in this condition appear to develop obesity during the first 10 years of their life. It reveals also that family factors are particularly 7 important. Almost all cases showed a clear family history of obesity in one or both parents, or in a brother or sister.

In women with gross obesity greater than 100 per cent above ideal body weight, genetic factors also appear to play a part. The authors consider that there is a definite need for a programme of restrictive feeding of young children from families with both a strong genetic and family 7 background of obesity.

A significant finding of the survey is that high blood pressure was shown to be more common with increasing weight. It concludes that special attention is needed for grossly overweight patients. This should include a long-term follow-up by a single person, the authors suggest, as many of the women in the

study appeared to move from one family doctor to another over the years. The authors say that their survey was in no way representative of the distribution of incidence of obesity in the total New Zealand population of women.

“It is clear that we do require further studies on larger samples of the New Zealand population to give some indication of the relative rates of very gross obesity, compared with obesity,” they say.