Spot on.

High-tech medicine is sexy and attracts megabucks for research and development and a very profitable industry. Preventative health relies on government. Part of the problem can be sheeted home to privatisation of everything. The free market has its place, but now it dictates every aspect of our lives.

One positive thing on the health horizon is, ironically, looming energy prices. We can blame obesity on the foods we eat, but it is really about our entire lifestyles becoming unhealthy. And the biggest cause of that is our sedentary living, courtesy of almost free energy and the convenience of the motor car.

I am looking forward to the post-cheap-oil era because we will once again conduct our lives with greater physical activity. We will walk to the local shop, go back to gardening for at least some of our foodstuffs, enjoy much less stress, much more conviviality, saner cities and better mental health as a result of all this.

Recognising that preventative health is a major economic issue, it is incumbent on government, as the author says, to swing the whole medical system towards preventative health as its first priority. To some extent this will mean some intervention in the free market so that it does not totally dominate our health priorities.

Todd Harper says "only a tiny fraction of Australia’s 2005-06 health budget was spent on public health (2 per cent)".
The above is the most interesting point and not enough people know about this. It should be known to a wider layer. But in whose pockets is the other 98% going? Harper you do not say? Why not? Would it interupt your opportunist relationship with the government?
The writer Harper does not explain upfront and clearly, which he is obliged to do, the hidden agenda he is promoting. And that is, a partnership with the government to dress in nice clothing profiteering and "privatisation" of the amply funded hospital Medicare system. Which he presents as if it is tackling the disgraceful state of the publicly funded health system of which we pay for a few times over and receive a whole 2% in return. With this question life itself is threatened as many have died needlessly or finished up worse after the needless and artificially contrived long waiting lists. The grab for the dollar and big profits is the surest way to undermine health care and for that matter education. Because then cuts are demanded in every aspect of health care including staff and sending patients home early to reuse the bed.

The solutions seem so obvious, don't they? Fresh food and exercise and as much as possible avoiding doctors, hospitals and all manifestations of our so called "health" system, particularly pharmacists. Why can't sugar cane crops be state controlled for diversion to ethanol production and staple grain crops like rice and corn similarly regulated for food production? Wartime rationing controls limited consumption of sugar in the past with an unlooked for improvement in the health of whole populations. If this were possible we could help in our energy crisis, stem the flow of this "river of illness" and avoid exacerbating current food shortages in the developing world.

Relax, folks, I don't think the obesity problem will be with us for much longer.

It will be solved by the exploding cost of food.

www.parentproject.org.au collected nearly 5000 signatures to call attention to Duchenne muscular dystrophy – a chronic genetic disorder of childhood. The dystrophin gene responsible is the biggest gene in the body, the first discovered, so logically treatments for all genetic diseases are likely to be advanced from investigating the "leader" of genes.
The biggest gene in the body, it is more susceptible to spontaneous mutation, the most common genetic disorder affecting 1 in 3,000 males. Because sports injuries affect muscle and this pastime has undeserved importance in our society, muscle research that advances our understanding and strengthening of muscle will have a great impact. More importantly - lost work time does impact significantly upon our economy.
Muscle research covers heart disease - rampant in our predominantly overweight society. There are innumerable off-shoots to giving muscle research more attention based on our social, industrial and recreational priorities as a nation - even to the point of species survival in the distant future, if in order to leave this planet we must overcome the problem of muscle wasting in space.

As a nation, we invest very little in genetic research - our muscle scientists cannot survive without overseas funding. Duchenne costs individuals and society unfathomable lost potential, families their cohesion and happiness, and society many millions of dollars for ongoing care providers' wages, therapy, treatment, hospitalisations, equipment and facilities for each short lifespan.

Before the entire nation takes offence to the suggestion that after a lifetime of abuse, high profile lifestyle diseases DO need to be the subject of national attention, I am talking about equity for males affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy NOT preference.

Let's do something really clever as a nation and stop pandering ONLY to our weaknesses. Let's become more responsible in our choices and then there would be more resources to go around in Australia, and more to spend on treating some truly inspirational young men, who slip away too quietly whilst the rest of us beat our breasts about how unfair it is that we have contracted a life-threatening, life-style disease well into our adult lives.

Patricia WA has it in a nutshell. If every member of the community adopted a healthy lifestyle hospital and related health service utilisation would reduce by at least 30%.

Sadly our "health system" is focused on curing disease rather than preventing illness. We need to see hospitals and obesity as monuments to the FAILURE of our health system.

We should pay our general practices (because we need to move to multidisciplinary primary care) when patients are well not when they are ill. That will make them look to longer term solutions and allow them to tackle the lifestyle determinants of illness - smoking, nutrition, physical activity, substance misuse, stress - and the most cost effective care when people do fall ill.

I eagerly await a political leader to take up the challenge.