BMJ  2004;329:53 (3 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.53-a

Letter

Fighting obesity

Physical activity has major role

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Jain's editorial on fighting obesity, which focuses on the recent House of Commons Health Committee report on obesity, does not truly reflect the findings of that report.1 The editorial's detailed comments focus almost exclusively on diet and energy intake. This seems to mirror much of the bias in the discussions in the public and health profession domains.

While I generally agree with the editorial that we must create the evidence because an evidence base is lacking, this does not give some imprimatur to ignore the potential for physical activity to make a major contribution to addressing the obesity and overweight problem (noting that people are overweight before they become obese and may find physical activity harder once obese). It is notable that the Health Committee says that if the government were to achieve its target of trebling cycling in the period 2000-10 (and there are very few signs . . . [Full text of this article]

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Adrian L Davis, research fellow

Transport Studies Group, University of Westminster, London W1M 4UM davisa@westminster.ac.uk


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Relevant Article

Fighting obesity
Anjali Jain
BMJ 2004 328: 1327-1328. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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