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| IOTF Round Up
The work of the taskforce continues to accelerate with some significant new developments mentioned in the Chairman's Letter. The IOTF is preparing an action guide which governments will be able to use as a blueprint for developing their own strategies to deal with prevention and management. The taskforce steering group is developing the guide with the assistance of Dr Boyd Swinburn, of the Department of Community Health, University of Auckland, New Zealand. The need for the guide was highlighted at a meeting with Commonwealth health ministers in Barbados last November. Already the IOTF is building on the support established there and is set to run a series of workshops beginning in the Caribbean and the Australia/Pacific regions. It is hoped that some Commonwealth ministers will have the opportunity to raise the issue of obesity during the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May. Working Groups The IOTF working group projects cover management, prevention, economic costs, childhood obesity and training. The childhood obesity group, chaired by Dr William Dietz, is ready to embark on a new phase of research attempting to document levels of obesity among 10-15 year olds around the world. The group will also see the publication of their work on the problem of defining obesity among children and adolescents. Their approach, which adapts adult BMI, will be reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in June. See page 12. The management group, chaired by Prof George Bray, is working on a programme, similar to the 'know your cholesterol' scheme in the USA, to identify and recruit overweight and obese individuals with particularly high health risks. This programme is designed to raise individual awareness of BMI and other risk factors, guiding people to seek appropriate help. The economic costs group, chaired by Prof Ian Caterson, is developing a standardised method that can be used by governments to assess the cost of obesity to health systems around the world. The PHAPO working group on public health approaches to prevention, chaired by Prof Shiriki Kumanyika has developed a model showing the way social pressures can influence the development of obesity. PHAPO are also gathering information on programmes, projects and policies relating to obesity prevention especially those with a wider environmental theme. Project officer Vicki Antipatis would welcome any information. Please e-mail: v.antipatis@iotf.org. See P10 - Caught in the causal web. New website address The IOTF has a new web address on an independent server - www.iotf.org and is also managing IASO's tandem web site on www.iaso.org. Several IASO member associations have taken up an invitation to post web pages via the IOTF's Overweight and Obesity Network (OONET), which is now covers 42 countries. Pages posted recently include those for the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Associations and also for Malaysia and Korea. The OONET also links to associations with websites including the UK's ASO, ABESO, ASSO, SEEDO, and NAASO. The IOTF secretariat has returned to its offices at the
Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen after a fire damaged the premises
before Christmas. The secretariat could be on the move again later this
year. Plans are under consideration for joint secretariat functions with
IASO based in London, but details remain to be confirmed. The secretariat
can be contacted at: The Intl. Obesity TaskForce c/o:
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