Study to tackle NZ’s growing obesity via rugby clubs

Thursday, 14 May 2015

Study to tackle NZ’s growing obesity via rugby clubs

A new study announced today will determine if a weight management programme delivered throughout New Zealand rugby clubs could help to curb the nation’s growing obesity problem, particularly among Māori and Pacific men.

University of Auckland researcher Associate Professor Ralph Maddison has just received a Feasibility Study award from the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) worth nearly $150,000 to assess if a weight management and healthy lifestyles programme developed in Scotland for football fans could work in New Zealand.

“In New Zealand 31 per cent of adults are obese and a further 34 per cent are overweight. Obesity in males increased from 17 per cent in 1997 to 30 per cent in 2012/2013, and men have higher rates of obesity than women across most age groups,” says Dr Maddison.

Unfortunately, Dr Maddison says men do not typically engage with traditional weight loss programmes; 88 per cent of commercial programme attendees are female. Reasons for this may include the perception that dieting and weight management programmes are ‘for women’, and concerns about feeling out of place in female-dominated groups.

“Professional rugby with its high male, Māori, and Pacific fan base provides an ideal way to deliver weight management programmes. This study will modify and pre-test an effective and cost-effective programme developed in Scotland with professional soccer clubs to determine its acceptability for New Zealand men,” he says.

HRC Chief Executive Dr Kathryn McPherson says the rapid increase in New Zealand’s obesity rates in recent years is a serious health concern.

“Funding research such as this is vital as obesity and its related complications, including diabetes, high blood pressure, cancers, stroke, and heart disease, potentially pose the greatest public health threat to New Zealand going forward,” says Dr McPherson.

Dr Maddison is one of nine researchers to receive a combined total of more than $1.2 million in Feasibility Study funding in the HRC’s 2015 funding round.

Other researchers funded include Professor Lisa Stamp from the University of Otago, Christchurch, who will study the effects of tart cherry concentrate on blood uric acid, levels of which are elevated in patients with gout, a common form of arthritis in New Zealand; and Professor Michael Findlay (University of Auckland), who will investigate whether the side effects of poor memory and concentration often experienced by women receiving treatment such as tamoxifen for breast cancer could be reversed by taking a magnesium supplement.

HRC Feasibility Study recipients 2015

To view lay summaries of the recipients’ projects, go to www.hrc.govt.nz/funding-opportunities/recipients and filter for ‘Researcher initiated proposals’, ‘Feasibility Studies, ‘2015’.

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