Dave Letele: health advocate and activist on the Helen Clark foundation urging the Government to tackle New Zealand's obesity rates

The Helen Clark foundation is calling on the Government to address New Zealand's growing obesity stats and improve access to healthy foods.

The think tank's newly-released report revealed that one in eight Kiwi kids and one-third of adults live with obesity - the third-highest rate in the OECD.

Health advocate and activist Dave Letele says it's important to invest in educational programs to teach families how to improve their help - but companies need to be regulated too.

"These companies, these sugar companies, these fast-food companies - the most profitable places are all in the poorest areas. I think they should be made to invest in these communities."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There is yet another call for the government to tackle
obesity rates, and this time from the Helen Clark Foundation. Now,
the Helen Clark Foundations released a report today which reckons
more than a third of kew WE adults are too fat,
and they reckon the way to solve this is to
shift the conversation quote from the individual to the wider
food environment we're exposed to every day now. Dave Latally

(00:21):
is a community leader and the founder of the BBM
Motivation Program.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Dave, Hello, Hey have they how's it going?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, I'm very well. Thank you. Do you agree with them?
This is no longer an individual problem. It is now
a government problem.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
You know. It's something that I've been saying for years.
You know, I keep banging on about this. It's, you know,
a choice. It implies equal starting points, and a lot
of the environments that especially the areas that we're serving,
there's no equity there. We're surrounded by every single bad
choice that's available to us. It just makes it a
lot harder. But you know, it's why around education, what

(00:53):
we do is what needs to happen. It's government policy
and also community working together.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah. Look, I mean tell me something, do people regardless
of where you come from, what environment you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Do we not all know already that if you put
KFC in your mouth, you're going to get fat, but
if you put a broccoli in your mouth, you're going
to be healthy?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh? I think I think most people would know that.
But at the same time, you know, there's there's heather.
There's a lot of knowledge that's not being passed down
to children anymore. You know it. It's not just people
who are just too lazy, but it's people who are
working multiple jobs trying to keep the lights on in.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
That the problem though, Dave, I mean because we learn
about the food, we learn about the food triangle at
school right like year gosh eight or nine or something
like that. Isn't the truth that when you are wealthy,
you've got a lot more time so you can make
yourself a nice stir fry for yourself and the family.
But if you're poor, you don't have as much time.
You're traveling more, you're working longer hours to make ends meet.
It's a little bit more chaotic, so you rely on

(01:49):
takeaways hundred percent. How do we get around there?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Poor? You're not only you're poor, you're time poor.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
We've helped kids that you know, there's mum reached out
to me late one night, just finished work one in
the morning, reached out on Facebook. I happened to be awake,
asking me to help her fifteen year old son who
weighs two hundred and thirty kilos. Sure, they're the ones
doing the cooking for the family because the parents aren't there,
they're working. So it's just I mean, it's a massive problem.
But what we've got to do is, I think, is

(02:17):
these these companies, these sugar companies and these fast food
companies need to be you know, the most profitable places
are all in the poorest areas. I think then they
should be made to good days in these communities.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
But then if the problem is that people are time
poor so they don't have the time to go to
the supermarket and buy the good food and then cook
the good food, then you know, putting a sugar tax
on is only going to make their bills more expensive.
Limiting advertising is not going to change anything. How do
we how do we actually help people then to get
the healthy food into their days when their days are
too full.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Invest in community programs much like ours where we've seen
the results. I mean with that kid, he lost thirty
kilos to.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Us, how did you do it?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Educated him him and his brother and his sisters. We
educate and how to cook healthy on a budget, how
to shop healthy in a budget. They've done the cooking.
That's how you break cycles. Now it's not it's not
an immediate fix. This is but we can't. We can't
look at the short term. This is long term issues.
We've got to look at so that things are better
for our grandchildren.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
So so in that case, they actually did have people,
the kids in the house, who had a little bit
of time. But the problem is the kids didn't know
what to do.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
So you start in schools. It's just investing in programs
that work alongside, you know, like just I know, when's
the last time he drove through Mayota Town Center or
Tata it is it's a fast it's a health food
gets at the fastest swamp. It's a disgrace. So it's
a lot different than driving through or where I see

(03:43):
you sometimes a.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Ponds of b Well what if we got on ponsib
We've got one one KFC on pons and be drag
and that's today. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a fair
point that you may. Hey, listen, Dave on another subject, though,
I'll tell you what's going to take off is the
idea that maybe we start giving people ozimpic jabs because
you know it's expensive, but it's a hell of a
lot lot less expensive than dealing with really really fat

(04:05):
people in the health system. What do you reckon.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I've seen, I've met people that it works. I'm look
at still it's still out for me. Look, I still
think those options, it's like the opic gatric bypass. Those
are options, but they shouldn't be the main option or
the only option, because they don't break cycles, they don't
educate the children. That's what we've got to do here
for long term results. I mean, there was an obesity clinic.

(04:28):
The problem with the system is they always invest in
top down, never bottom up. They invested a few million
dollars in a two year pilot in obesity clinic to
give people optly fast to get them skinny enough to
get the operation, but they still might not get the
operation because they either can't afford it or they might
not get funded it. Where the program like ours from
the Couch gets two hundred and sixteen thousand, like this

(04:49):
is where they always go wrong. They always look at
it from the top down, never bottom up.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Dave Listen, thanks for talking to us. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Man.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
There's Davi las Taley, the founder of BBM Motivation. For
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