The Nutrition and Health Foundation hosted it’s third annual seminar entitled
Obesity: a life cycle perspective on Tuesday 21st September 2010.
Delivering the opening address at the conference, Minister for Older People and Health Promotion, Áine Brady, T.D., commented; "Responsibility for achieving and maintaining good health is multi-layered; involving the individual, the health sector, education, the food industry and the broader society. It is therefore important that a holistic approach be taken to its protection. Giving people information is the first step in assisting them take control of their own lifestyle and weight, thereby avoiding obesity and the chronic diseases associated with it."
Professor Andrew Hill, Professor of Medical Psychology and Head of the Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences delivered the key note address on the relationship between body dissatisfaction, eating patterns and obesity. Other presenters included; Dr. Bernadette Carr, Medical Director of VHI Healthcare, presented an analysis of the cost of obesity across the lifespan from a health insurers’ perspective; Dr. Mary McCarthy, UCC, presented on ‘Food choice and health across the life course’ and Dr. Catherine Woods, DCU, on ‘Why we do, why we don’t? Understanding physical activity motivation across the lifespan’.
Dr Muireann Cullen, NHF Manger, concluded the seminar by highlighting the important role that Industry, Government and citizens all have to play in tackling this health crisis that is, obesity. She said, that it is, 'through a co-operative framework, the NHF aims to bring these groups together to raise awareness of the need for a balanced lifestyle and how we can all play our part in achieving a healthier society'.
To view the presentations given at the event, please click on each below
| Speaker | Title | Presentation |
| Minister Áine Brady (DOHC) | Opening Address |  |
| Professor Andrew Hill (Leeds University) | Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children |  |
| Dr. Mary McCarthy (UCC) | Food Behaviour: Taking a Life Course Perspective |  |
| Dr. Catherine Woods (DCU) | Why we do, why we don’t? Understanding physical activity motivation across the lifespan |  |
| Dr. Bernadette Carr (VHI) | The cost of obesity across the lifespan from a health insurance company’s perspective | Unavailable |
| Dr. Muireann Cullen (NHF) | A multi-stakeholder approach to tackling Ireland’s obesity epidemic |  |