Nutritional Intervention Throughout The Life Cycle For The Prevention Of Obesity And Other Chronic Non Communicable Diseases

Abstract

Overweight and obesity affect 38% and 23%, respectively, of the Chilean population 17 years and older, according to the National Health Survey (2003). Just as other chronic non communicable diseases, obesity can originate in early life and already at that stage individuals who are prone to be obese in adulthood can be detected. The high prevalence of overweight and obesity among pregnant women and children in our country, as well as the well known association between chilhood and adult obesity, suggest that this may be the situation in Chile. The new Program of Intervention throughout the Life Cycle aims at the earliest possible detection of risk and to prevention through counselling on healthy food and physical activity of mothers, children and families, in order to change conditioning behaviour. The proposed strategy stands a good chance of being effective, given the high coverage of Mother and Child health controls in Chile.