ABSTRACT

Prevention of obesity is a priority for the simple reason

that it is far easier in the modern food-rich environment to

gain excess weight than it is to lose it. A specific focus on

child obesity is considered important for two reasons:

first, lifestyle patterns are learned at an early age, and

unhealthy patterns can lead to a lifetime of increased risk

of ill-health; and second, the pathological effects of obe-

sity are in many cases a product of the time the individual

has been obese as well as the severity of the obesity.

Interventions that can maintain or improve health behav-

ior from an early age and that prevent long-term obesity

are likely to be far more cost-effective over the longer

period than managing and treating obesity and obesity-

related diseases after they have developed.