Obesity, which affects 21% of the adult population of the Canary Islands and 19% of the child population, will begin to be addressed comprehensively by the public health system of the islands as a disease and will no longer be seen "as a condition" of the "chubby" person.
This was announced this Wednesday by the Minister of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, Esther Monzón, when presenting the integrated care process for overweight and obese patients that Primary Care of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) will begin to offer from this very day.
Monzón stressed that the Canary Islands is the first autonomous administration to develop a strategy to address this type of pathology, from which other chronic diseases are derived, such as diabetes, or cardiovascular problems.
From the early diagnosis, which will be made by family doctors and nurses based on criteria established by a team of forty professionals from Primary and Hospital Care, the patient will be offered comprehensive care that will go beyond their referral to the endocrinology service, she explained.
Thus, a multidisciplinary team, which will include psychologists and social workers, will be in charge of treating obesity processes from now on in the Canary Islands public health system.
Asked about the economic impact that these patients generate on the health resources of the archipelago, Monzón admitted that "it exists and is real", not only because of the disease itself, but because of its derivatives.
According to data provided to Efe by the Ministry she directs, "it is estimated that in direct costs, obesity consumes approximately between 7 and 10% of the total health expenditure in Spain, a figure that can be extrapolated to this community".
Regarding overweight in the child population, she recalled that Public Health and Education launched a year ago a plan to prevent unhealthy lifestyle habits, in order to avoid or reduce the incidence of obesity, which shows an upward trend, as reflected in diabetes rates.
Poor diet and genetic influence are some of the factors that, in the opinion of the Minister, explain the high incidence of diabetes recorded in the Canary Islands.
The general director of Assistance Projects of the SCS, Antonia María Pérez, has reported that, from now on, and by virtue of this comprehensive process, the Canary Islands public health system will apply a specific protocol to patients diagnosed with obesity or overweight that will begin by making them aware that they suffer from a disease, since many do not consider it as such or normalize it, which means that they do not remedy or solve it.
From the diagnosis, the aim will be to ensure that, in the shortest possible time, they take the necessary measures, both dietary and related to the practice of physical exercise, with which this strategy is aligned, hence the fact that "the devices through which they can carry out physical activity in the most suitable way for each one and according to the place where they are" will be made available to each SCS patient with obesity or overweight, she specified.
Pérez stressed that obesity can worsen other underlying pathologies or that they start due to it, such as neuromuscular, anemic or cardiac pathologies.