When I heard that Australia had taken over America and we are now the most overweight nation in the world I couldn't believe it and it's happening to more and more children as well.
The survey which was promoted in the media as showing that Australia has higher rates of obesity than America was actually hopelessly flawed. It was based on people aged 45-60 who presented for free blood pressure testing. As high blood pressure is often associated with obesity the sample were self-selecting to be overweight or obese. The scientific validity of this study across the whole population of Australia was effectively nil.

[/QUOTE]What sort of message are we sending to our children? "It doesn't matter if you don't eat right and exercise, you can always have surgery"
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We are sending some very twisted messages to our children. We are teaching them that all that matters is how you look. As long as you look like some emaciated waif on the cover of a magazine who probably lives on cocaine and cigarettes, well that's fine. People can be active and eat healthy and still be on the heavy side. But we promote this Kate Moss ideal like it's healthy. If we want people to be healthy we should stop focusing on how they look and promote healthy eating and exercise. We should stop judging people by BMI (a worthless measure) and start judging ourselves on how healthy we are.

Is the government going to fund treatment for anorexia? because all this focus on body size especially in young people is likely to start an epidemic. And anorexia is a deadly mental illness with a mortality rate of 20% affecting young women almost exclusively.

I sympathise with those who feel they need this surgery but I agree with Kelly that it's far from what should be the government's first priority.