Press Release

A major new health campaign for Latin America was launched today (Sept 10 1999).

Medical experts meeting in Buenos Aires announced a new task force to persuade government leaders and other health professions to do more to combat the growing epidemic of obesity and weight-related diseases.

The latest evidence suggests that in many countries where people have experienced poor nutrition, overweight and obesity are a special threat leading to increased diabetes, heart disease and a variety of other serious medical conditions.

Dr Walmir Coutinho, coordinator of the group, said it planned a campaign of action to ensure that politicians give the issue a higher priority when deciding on health improvement programmes. He is a member of a health task force set up by the government of Brazil to look at nutrition and healthy lifestyles, while a second government group is studying the problem of childhood obesity.

"This is a very important development. By creating an obesity task force for the whole of Latin America we hope we can do something positive to help to prevent the health catastrophe which is happening in many countries all over the world," he added.

Dr Julio Cesar Montero, the new president of Federation of Latin American Associations for the Study of Obesity (FLASO), told a conference of 1,500 medical scientists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that the group would work closely with the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) which is acting all over the world to seek improvements in treatment and prevention of obesity.

Speaking in Buenos Aires, Prof Philip James, chairman of the IOTF, praised FLASO's leaders for their decision to set up their own task force. "It is remarkable how much effort has gone already into persuading governments to do something about this tidal wave of obesity we are facing. Urgent action is needed as we are already seeing a huge increase in obesity and expect to see the level of diabetes and other diseases rise dramatically in the coming years," added London-based Prof James, who is also chairman of a United Nations commission on nutrition.

The new Latin American Obesity Task Force will draw its members from a group which has already worked on developing a consensus on obesity. The consensus, declared in Rio de Janeiro last year, led to the founding of an International Obesity Day.

The Pan American Health Organization has already recognized the close connection between obesity and poverty in many Latin American countries and has called for governments to provide more evidence of the trends in increasing overweight and obesity.