Health committee  My one recommendation is that we need significant contributions from all levels of government and multiple sectors over an extended period of time. It's a complex issue. It needs lots of effort to solve this complex problem.

Health committee  I wanted to quickly add information about a system they're using in the U.K. within the school system to monitor obesity. They do measurements periodically. They have health care nurses within the school system, so it's a little bit easier to implement. But that monitoring could

Health committee  I want to raise just one quick point on the issue of time, which is what everyone uses as their excuse to be not physically active. People spend 25% less time doing chores now than they did 15 years ago. They spend hours more on the computer and in front of the TV than they did

Health committee  I'm just going to speak very quickly, and I'll let Mark and Cora respond in more detail. You know, there's the saying “if you build it, they will come”. That's true to a certain degree. I was just in Little Rock, Arkansas, last week, and they had this lovely trail behind the ho

Health committee  There are some clinicians in the United States who do surveys with their obese patients and ask: “What do you want to be called? Do you want to be called 'obese'; do you want to be called 'fat'; do you want to be called 'overweight'; do you want to say that you 'have a weight pro

Health committee  Thank you for your comments. They are well taken. I'm all for calling a spade a spade. It's clearly a problem. I'll echo Cora's comments that we need to be careful with the children, more so than with the adults. I have done some research, and children who are obese are more li

Health committee  You mentioned the words “behaviour change” in your question as well, and that's part of the reason why it's going to require so much work and effort. If you look at individuals and behaviour change models, you can fall on a spectrum of behaviour change, in which you have people a

Health committee  Thanks again for the invitation as extended by Mark and Cora. I've been in obesity research for ten years, and I actually went to graduate school when I saw this problem starting, with the intention of trying to solve the problem. It is nice to see that we're finally starting t