More than 30 senior professionals plus the five speakers in the areas of overweight and obesity, sport, physical activity and policy participated in Sport Knowledge Australia’s "Fat Policy – Sport, Public Health and Education" seminar in Sydney on 17 April and the outcomes were compelling.

Led by top fitness expert, Prof Kevin Norton of Sport Knowledge Australia, the speakers included Professor Ian Henry from England’s Loughborough University, Prof Adrian Bauman from the University of Sydney, and Brent Espeland, Director of Sport Performance and Development at the Australian Sports Commission.

The experts concluded that, among other things, a new government department “Department of Healthy Living” – needed to be created at the Commonwealth level to take ownership of health promotion.

“From time-to-time we need a new department to respond to our countries and communities needs. A new department will have clear ownership for these issues and have a cross department purview. Leadership is required; similar to the issues relating to our environment a single point of ownership is urgently needed,” Prof. Kevin Norton stated.

The following are consensus statements from the day:

• Overweight and obesity levels are spiralling out of control and may be impossible to reverse. The most rapid increases are among children and adolescents.*

• Physical inactivity contributes more to the burden of disease and disability than any other modifiable risk factor [including overweight and obesity] and should therefore become the major focus of intervention strategies.

• Physical activity patterns appear to be relatively stable although incidental activity patterns [energy expended in normal daily living activities] continues to decline – hence the contribution to the rise in overweight and obesity.

• There are very significant gains in health and well-being if people undertake physical activity irrespective of any weight loss.

• Even though losing weight will lead to health improvements there is too much emphasis on losing weight [to gain health benefits]. When this fails it often leads to people giving up being active. Education programs are required throughout the community to emphasise the health benefits of being more active even without weight loss.

• There are many valuable and successful interventions currently running in Australia and overseas. The ‘best buys’ are generally investing in:
- school-based programs for physical activity
- physical environments supportive of safe physical activity
- promoting healthy eating generally but specifically in schools
- interventions to get insufficiently active adults more active
- inducements and rewards for those people leading healthy lives, including to businesses/employers who provide facilities/opportunities to staff to be active and healthy

• NEW MONEY is required to invest billions over the coming decade. This will be a cost-saving in the long term. There needs to be up to $1 billion spent immediately in areas recognised as our best buys. A range of possible strategies was discussed but it was agreed it was difficult to place taxes on any one area. As a nation we should invest in the health of our people. This is expensive but investing new money now will save much more if we let the obesity and inactivity epidemics continue.

• There should be the establishment of a new government department - the Department of Healthy Living - at the Commonwealth level to take ownership of health promotion and govern the areas outlined above. Presently there is a scatter of efforts to increase healthy living across many departments with no single department taking ownership. Although a whole-of-government approach is required to cover the areas recognised, there needs to be a clear ‘champion’ of the strategy. Health promotion is devalued and receives less than about one percent of the nation's health care budget.

* In a comprehensive research paper examining the last 100 years of Australia’s childhood overweight and obesity: Descriptive epidemiology of childhood overweight and obesity in Australia: 1901-2003
- Currently about 30% of children are overweight
- This is predicted to rise to adult rate within the next 30 years; approximately 60% of children will be overweight or obese.