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BATASAN, Quezon City — There was a time when the belief among parents was that growing kids when fat was an indication of being healthy, but experts are now saying that tipping the scales over isn't ideal as it hints on obesity, especially when taking into consideration the age and height of an individual.

Despite these, many Filipinos don’t seem aware that being overweight translates to poor health, especially for the 41 percent of the adult population in the Philippines being classified as 'obese'.

In relation to this, House Deputy Speaker Janette Garin has noted that healthcare services cost the government some ₱1.9 trillion, which represents 7.3 percent of the country’s gross national product (GNP)—and the figure does not even include expenses incurred to address obesity.

Garin, former secretary of the Department of Health, cited that this cost could very well rise to over ₱2.7 trillion if overweight-related expenses are included.

“These cover direct medical costs such as hospital confinement, based on normative estimates assuming patients are diagnosed and treated according to medical guidelines. And when we take non-medical costs into account, it's an additional ₱165.39 billion, including expenses such as transportation,” she pointed out.
“Forty-one percent is very alarming. I was surprised because I never expected it to be that high,” Iloilo's First District representative exclaimed in reaction to the recent findings of the study led by former health undersecretary Dr. Madeleine de Rosas-Valera for Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical Philippines.

The study results was supported by a media report indicating that over four in 10 Filipino adults are already at increased risk of obesity-related health problems.

“The findings are a sound of alarm and a red flag for our country,” Garin pointed out while stressing that Filipinos currently face high out-of-pocket healthcare expenses and public healthcare spending is largely directed toward curative care rather than preventive approach.

She enthused that the government must work together to address the problem of obesity by providing the right information to the level of schools and communities.

To underscore her concern over the worrisome health issue, the former health chief disclosed that she is looking into the possibility of pushing a legislative bill seeking to include lessons about misleading marketing of food that contributes to obesity in the school curriculum.

“I find it rather imperative for Congress to use its oversight powers if only to ensure that people are made aware of what they’ve been eating. This can be included in the curriculum. We have to start orienting parents and teachers because that is where it begins. We have to let them know what they are feeding their children or what they themselves are eating,” she strongly advised.

The group behind Epidemiological Burden and Cost of Obesity in the Philippines (EpiCob-PH) recently conducted another study that is primarily designed to address the gap in research on obesity’s demographic distribution and economic burden in the country.

Using a modeling approach that combined multiple national data sources, the group looked into data from the National Nutrition Survey and the Expanded National Nutrition Survey from 1993 to 2023 to estimate obesity’s current and future trends, as well as its health impacts.

Productivity losses, including workdays missed due to obesity-related conditions, were estimated at ₱1.17 trillion.