Media Transcript - Dr Rosanna Capolingua on 2SM with Leon Delaney on the AMA's Position Statement on Obesity

LEON DELANEY: President of the AMA, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, good morning.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Good morning.

LEON DELANEY: How are you today?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Very well, and you?

LEON DELANEY: Not bad at all. Trying to get my weight under control like so many other people.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Oh, it's not easy, is it?

LEON DELANEY: It's a major challenge, even when you do the right things, get some exercise, you know, eat healthy food, and it still doesn't work. I don't know. It's a pain.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: At least you're trying.

LEON DELANEY: Trying, that's the thing, very trying.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Yes, that's right.

LEON DELANEY: Over the weekend the AME - the AMA has released its position statement on obesity and you've described it as a whole of society problem but you seem to have placed a lot of focus on the way food is marketed and retailed in Australia.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Yes, I think that we need to consider how it is that we come to make the choices that we do around what we eat and a lot of it is related to marketing and advertising. In the supermarkets it's about product placement, specials, you know, there really is a lot of influence on making that choice right at the last point of purchase and if we think about that then we could probably think about making it easier for people to, you know, choose healthier foods by influencing all of that marketing.

LEON DELANEY: Is it too much to ask supermarkets, though, to take an active role in displaying and placing products according to a social agenda rather than according to their own profit motivation?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Well, I think they'll probably turn it into a competitive, profit-motivated issue which means that they'll be competing against each other to appear the healthier supermarket chain or, you know, deliverer of those sorts of products to the consumer. So I think that it can be used indeed as an opportunity for supermarkets to develop new profiles around their responsibility - community responsibility for the promotion of healthy foods.

LEON DELANEY: There is, of course, a high profile supermarket chain which already uses the slogan The Fresh Food People but then again many people have questioned the veracity of that slogan anyway.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Well, we need to make those sorts of things very real. I don't know what the veracity of that particular slogan is but it is about certainly promoting people purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables, appropriate meats but also in the packaged food lines, making sure that the product placement is for healthier packaged foods. I think about the specials and the end of aisle displays around healthier foods and, of course, this is just one part of what we're calling for. We're looking for the red, yellow and green traffic light labelling, front of package labelling on foods so that people can readily recognise the foods that are lower in salt, sugar and fat.

LEON DELANEY: In fact that's something that people would be quite pleased to welcome, isn't it, better and more informative labelling? Because consumers generally are keen to have that information available to them, aren't they?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: It's actually quite difficult to compare products when you read the ingredients on the contents.

LEON DELANEY: Oh yeah, especially when the print's so small.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Exactly. It's very difficult. I sometimes say to my patients, you know, try and pick up the packets and have a look at see which ones are better or have less sugar and fat in them but I know that's a very difficult exercise. If we could just readily see three green dots, you know, low fat, low sugar, and low salt, on a packet then you know you're picking the right one and obviously that would be carefully regulated so you would have to qualify for the right traffic light signals and even kids could recognise those foods.

LEON DELANEY: Yes. Of course, food marketing and labelling is only one aspect of the things covered in your position statement. Also in relation to food, once again you've returned to the idea of imposing higher taxes for junk food and sugary soft drinks. Some people, again, are going to see that sort of proposal as an attack on lower income families who enjoy the occasional naughty treat, even if they don't over-indulge, but if you put the price up then they'll see that as some sort of punitive measure, don't you think?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Yes, it is a concern. When we advocate for increasing taxes in any area you're advocating for increasing government revenue and increasing for out of pocket expenses to people so I think we have to be careful that we target that sort of issue appropriately in the right areas and then support the alternative so I would want to see if there is an increased tax on particular junk foods I would want to make sure that there's cross-subsidisation of healthy foods. Because you could actually price those less able to afford out of the ability to feed their family, on occasion, because they can't afford to pick up that pizza for five dollars or whatever it is.

So you would want to make sure that no one is jeopardised or compromised but in fact they're assisted and the assistance goes towards a healthier life as well.

LEON DELANEY: In fact, to some extent, there already is a tax on fast foods, for example, in that they're not exempted from the GST, are they?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Yes, I guess we've got some direction there. You know, we really have got to think overall about what it is we've done in our lives and in our culture at the moment in Australia, for us to have drifted down this path and all of these are parts of a jigsaw puzzle to assist us to get back onto healthy feet.

You know, even the way we, you know, town planning, how accessible fresh fruit and vegetables are to families in different areas, particularly in remote areas, very difficult and very expensive to get access to healthy foods. There's a whole lot of components about us helping our own communities to have a better future for themselves and their kids.

LEON DELANEY: There's been a lot of discussion about the so-called obesity epidemic and the discussion seems to have gone on for a few years now. Are we making any progress, aside from the apparent progress of having more people aware of the problem? Are we actually getting people to change their lifestyles and improve their weight?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: The stats at the moment are still not showing us that positive trend. It takes a while to actually show statistical data that we've made the difference.

A recent study showed that this generation of kids probably won't enjoy the longevity that Australians have now. We've had an increasing lifespan sort of every year for many years and this would be the first time ever that we predict a shorter lifespan for Australians into the future, again related to this overweight and obesity issue.

So even the awareness is the first step, you know, talking it up, making it understandable and acceptable for people to want to make healthier food choices is a good thing. It starts to change the trend and the thinking and the culture and the behaviours and adopting new behaviours which are healthier ones will then translate into the better stats over time.

LEON DELANEY: Yes, and apparently the problem with obesity is that it's now challenging smoking as being the most significant cause of preventable death and obviously with smoking we've achieved some success there with reducing the numbers of people smoking, haven't we?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Yes. I think we have to liken this very much to what we've done with tobacco and even the - you know, the binge drinking and the excess alcohol consumption, similarly we have been not completely successful but very successful with tobacco. We've still got, you know, a ways to go but we have certainly in the last 30 years turned things around considerably and turned those statistics around, the morbidity and the mortality related to tobacco as well, because people just aren't smoking.

This is the same sort of thing. We're at the very beginning of that journey with obesity.

LEON DELANEY: So there's a lot to be done and at the individual level, of course, a lot we can achieve by exercising some personal choice, isn't there?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Absolutely. Certainly, you know, it boils back down to what you described earlier, what you do as an individual but, you know, we have to support individuals to be able to make those choices, support them either with affordability issues and support them with the behavioural and cultural patterns of society and support them with the appropriate exposures, such as advertising or the supermarkets or the public health and education campaigns.

So there's a lot that can be done to help the individual make the right choices.

LEON DELANEY: Yes or, indeed, as you suggest in your position statement, subsidies for healthy food such as fruit and vegetables. I'm sure that would be welcomed, wouldn't it?

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Well, you know, people are very concerned at the moment about the increasing cost of buying food and the overall scenario that families are experiencing so it would very welcome to assist them to buy healthy foods.

LEON DELANEY: Absolutely. Thanks for your time today.

DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA: Thank you.

LEON DELANEY: Thanks very much. Dr Rosanna Capolingua, the president of the AMA. And that's the plan for getting obesity back under control. Although it's been on the agenda for quite a while, it's difficult to know if we're making any progress and, of course, whilst so much does rest upon personal choices and personal responsibility, it's also important to consider the contribution that can be made by marketing, by government regulation, by social activities and the way we generally choose to live our lives.