HRB Centre for Health and Diet Research

The Irish Times - Thursday 29th November 2012

ALISON HEALY

Costs of obesity may be higher than Safefood study suggested

The real cost of obesity may be much higher than the €1.13 billion highlighted in the Safefood study published yesterday, its health and nutrition director, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, said. She said the estimates in The Cost of Overweight and Obesity on the Island of Ireland study conducted by UCC were “very conservative”. It found that some €398 million was spent on direct healthcare costs while €728 million was lost by absenteeism and reduced or lost productivity at work.

The figures did not include issues such as the costs associated with being overweight or obese during pregnancy, or the costs associated with the psychological and emotional issues caused by obesity. While they included costs associated with absenteeism, they did not include the costs surrounding the loss of productivity for over-65-year-olds. Lead researcher Dr Anne Dee said lower back pain was a major cause of absenteeism and she said approximately 40 per cent of back pain was attributed to being overweight or obese.

The Irish Times - Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Obesity Hub (http://obesity.thehealthwell.info), an authoritative source of obesity related evidence, data and good practice was launched on 15th February 2011 in Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College Cork.  

A conference entitled "Public Health Nutrition and Related Research - Preparing a Proposal for EU FP7 Funding" was held in Rosscarbery, Cork on 11th and 12th March 2010.  The overall aim of this two-day event was to provide specialised training on FP7 funding and to target relevant Call Topics in the forthcoming FP7 Work Programme in Health (due to be published in July 2010).

More...

An obesity epidemic is set to place significant strain on public expenditure in the coming decades unless effective means of tackling it are found, according to the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Public Health, based at Queen’s University.

Prevalence of overweight and obesity on the island of Ireland

Two out of three Irish adults are overweight and one in four is obese according to a new report that provides a detailed analysis of the nutritional status and dietary habits of the Irish population