It is difficult to envisage a more important task in any society than nurturing the next generation. That function is most commonly associated with imbuing values such as good citizenship and a sense of community as well as providing youngsters with a record of academic achievement commensurate with their abilities.
But this State is facing a new challenge in seeking to shape its children, one which can be characterised - literally - as a matter of life or death. It is the need to stave off a crisis which, according to a report published yesterday by the National Taskforce on Obesity, has seen obesity become the most prevalent childhood disease in Europe.
The scale of the problem appears almost overwhelming. Obesity, based on a measure of a person's weight relative to their height, has been described by the World Health Organisation as a global epidemic. In the year 2000 more than 300 million people worldwide were obese. In Ireland, approximately 39 per cent of adults are overweight and 18 per cent are obese. The taskforce's report, Obesity - the Policy Challenges, says some 2,000 premature deaths are attributed to obesity every year at an estimated cost, in economic terms, of €4 billion. This figure takes no account of the human loss involved.
The report acknowledges that the classification of children as overweight or obese is more difficult than for adults because height, weight, age and gender need to be considered. But it says it is estimated that more than 300,000 children on the island of Ireland are overweight or obese. This number is projected to increase annually by 10,000.
Obesity is very much a modern phenomenon, the result - in the simplest terms - of calorie intake exceeding calorie consumption; we are eating more than we burn off. There are a number of factors at play. People are consuming more foods which are high in fat, sugars or starch and increasing demands on time have led to more consumption of pre-prepared food. Children are consuming more sweets, fizzy drinks, chips and burgers. Portion sizes are increasing and crucially, on the other side of the equation, lifestyles are becoming more sedentary.
The result is a public health time bomb, with excessive weight and obesity contributing to a range of illnesses- from type 2 diabetes to stroke and cardiovascular disease. The response, according to the taskforce, should be the combined implementation of more than 90 recommendations ranging from a ban on vending machines in primary schools to a risk-benefit analysis of taxation that supports healthy eating.
The taskforce says the Taoiseach's office should take responsibility for fostering joined up policy implementation and real engagement by the public and private sectors. It is more reserved in its references to people adopting responsibility for their own health, maintaining that many forces impede the efforts of consumers to change. The reality, however, is that each individual will pay a personal price for not doing so.