Govt promises strategy to tackle obesity

The federal government has promised a national strategy to tackle Australia's obesity crisis will be in place next year.

The pledge follows a damning report showing Australia has a greater proportion of overweight people than the United States.

Statistics showing 26 per cent of adult Australians - almost four million - are obese, were "staggering", Health Minister Nicola Roxon said.

America has a 25 per cent obesity rate.

Ms Roxon said the report, Australia's Future Fat Bomb, would come as a shock to the community and highlighted the need for urgent action.

"These are obviously pretty staggering statistics to show that we are the fattest, or one of the fattest countries in the world," Ms Roxon told reporters in Canberra.

Obesity was a national priority and the government hoped to have an effective nation-wide strategy implemented in the next 12 months, Ms Roxon said.

A government-initiated inquiry into obesity would consider a range of measures, including gym membership rebates, Ms Roxon said.

"We expect to have a full comprehensive strategy in place by the middle of next year ... obviously this (report) increases the urgency for that work to be undertaken."

But Tasmanian Liberal Senator Guy Barnett said the government needed to move faster to develop a strategy because the statistics would have worsened by this time next year.

The report presents the results of height and weight checks carried out on 14,000 adult Australians nationwide in 2005.

It reveals nine million adults have a body mass index (BMI) over 25, making them overweight or obese, an increase from seven million.

Middle-aged people are leading the way with seven in 10 men and six in 10 women aged 45 to 64 now registering a BMI of 25 or more.

An analysis of the data shows there will be an extra 700,000 heart-related hospital admissions in the next 20 years because of obesity alone.

The report's author, Professor Simon Stewart at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, outlined a range of measures to tackle obesity at the federal government's public inquiry into obesity in Melbourne.

He said a Healthy Towns initiative, based on the success of Tidy Towns which motivated Australians to tidy their local patch, could inspire communities to lose weight.

Prof Stewart said such a program would reward communities that collectively lose weight with, for example, new sporting facilities.

Wait lists for surgery could be prioritised on the basis of weightloss.

Australian Unity Wellness Program Manager Cate Grindlay told the inquiry obesity-related conditions such as diabetes were already translating to the health system.

Hospital admissions for diabetes-related illnesses had increased by 17 per cent annually over the past five years, while joint replacements are now the insurer's single largest hospital claims expense.

A Deakin University academic told the inquiry a tax on junk food and reducing junk food advertising targeting children was essential.

Professor Boyd Swinburne, the director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, said a junk food tax could be offset by subsidies on healthy foods.

Taxing junk food first emerged earlier this year at the Rudd Labor government's 2020 idea summit.