Govt cuts fuel coming health epidemic

Latest figures on New Zealanders’ rising diabetes levels expose the folly of the Government’s refusal to promote healthy eating policies, the Green Party says.

Green Party health and wellbeing spokesperson Sue Kedgley said the Government had done nothing to tackle the epidemic and had in fact gone in the opposite direction by dismantling health initiatives.

“Experts warned we would have epidemic levels of obesity unless we improved our diets and eating habits but, since the 2008 election, the Government has stopped funding for healthy eating programmes, cut funding for fresh fruit in schools and removed nutrition as a health priority.

“The Government knows poor nutrition is one of the biggest killers of New Zealanders but instead of doing something good about it, they dumped healthy eating programmes.

“Now, we’re heading for more unnecessary deaths, escalating health costs and, eventually, massive health-budget blow-outs.”

Diabetes estimated cost to New Zealand was $540 million for the financial year 2006-07 and was forecast to increase to $840 Million in 2011-12.

New Zealand’s increasingly poor health statistics were highlighted in a study published last weekend by international medical journal The Lancet.

The study found New Zealand had the fourth highest rate of diabetes out of high-income countries.

Ms Kedgley said the Green Party and the previous government had identified the country’s growing nutrition issues and had started programmes to counteract them.

“However, now the current Government has dumped the initiatives, we’ll see more and more of these negative statistics emerging,” she said.

Links:
The Lancet report: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960679-X/fulltext
Cost of diabetes: http://www.diabetes.org.nz/resources/