“While Covid-19 in the last 2 years has forced us to review the health priorities of the country, other diseases, other epidemics unfortunately continued their course and in some cases their increase. Obesity is certainly one of these, a disease that has now reached the effects of a pandemicof which too little and badly is spoken, and which needs urgent and targeted prevention programs and above all answers for all patients who are recognized with the disease, but without exemption for treatments and medicines “. Adi, the Italian Association of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition, spoke during the institutional conference organized yesterday at Palazzo Madama by the Parliamentary Intergroup Obesity and Diabetes for World Obesity Day, which occurs today 4 March all over the world.
“A big step was taken with the approval in 2019 of the motion in the Senate that recognized obesity as a disease and enshrined the rights and duties of people with obesity – comments Giuseppe Malfi, president of Adi – Now another effort is needed to have it recognized by the National Health Service as a chronic disease with the relative exemption for services, drugs and post-surgery supplements that are now paid for by the patient. diabetes. The patient suffering from obesity is often described as lazy, with little willpower, unable to solve his problem. We must fight this ‘stigma’ – urges the specialist – and consider it a true patient who must be welcomed and treated with the same dignity and the same respect that is reserved for other chronic diseases“.
“The environment in which we live has become ” obesogenic ‘, especially for some groups of the population – observes Maria Grazia Carbonelli, Adi councilor and coordinator of the study group on obesity – Environmental factors such as diet and lifestyle contribute 30% to the onset of the disease“, while” for 70% it affects the genetic predisposition. Children with obese parents have a high probability of becoming obese, there are about 240 genes directly or indirectly involved. A sedentary lifestyle has become the constant of our days for both adults and children and this has not helped us to maintain a proper weight. This means that, despite the many appeals and the many campaigns, prevention is not yet effective and above all it is still not enough “.
According to the ADI specialists, prevention for such a complex pathology as obesity must be done on various fronts: it must be done by the family that must pass on the habits of the Mediterranean diet, from school and school catering for children, from catering collective for workers who eat outside the home, and by the national health system with awareness campaigns.
“We need structures and spaces that allow physical activity both in schools and in the workplace, in the parks and green spaces of our cities – adds Carbonelli – A great help must also come from the food industry that must put healthy food on the market at an affordable price for all segments of the population. Only if these actions are carried out simultaneously can significant results be achieved “.
Finally, the importance of skills. “Dedicated treatment centers are very important for framing and choosing the right therapeutic path – remarks Malfi – The multifactoriality of a pathology such as obesity implies that it is treated by multidisciplinary centers which, however, in our country are patchy. The professional figures involved are many and vary according to the complications present. Certainly indispensable are the figures who deal with nutrition, psychology, rehabilitation, bariatric surgery. The presence of dedicated centers prevents patients from turning to unqualified personnel who propagate miraculous and often risky paths to health “.
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