UNB researchers leading study on provincial obesity - Telegraph-Journal
Author: Communications
Posted on Aug 21, 2011
Category: UNB Saint John
FREDERICTON - A research team led by the University of New Brunswick will aim at reversing the obesity epidemic in the province with a new study that targets the province's overweight people before they begin suffering from chronic diseases.
Stacey Reading, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded researcher, says the province's rising health care costs as a result of rising chronic illness are unsustainable.
A startling 29 per cent of New Brunswickers are considered obese and are likely to further strain the provinces health care system without intervention.
Reading maintains that the source of the problem is that, unless obese adults in New Brunswick have suffered a heart attack, diabetes or another serious illness, many of the provinces physicians currently have nowhere to send their patients for help in managing or even controlling unhealthy weight gain.
"It's the long-term consequence of the condition that is the issue," Reading said, who is also an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick. "The longer you are obese the increased risk you have for developing more significant diseases that require hospitalization, hospital care, or significant intervention."
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