Real Health Podcast with Karl Henry
Real Health: Why female obesity rates peak in your 40s and 50s with Professor Donal O’Shea
Why are women aged 44 to 59 seeing some of the sharpest rises in weight gain? Is it menopause and hormones or the rush of modern life? And what role do medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro play?
Professor Donal O’Shea, HSE Lead for Obesity, joins me on this week’s episode of The Real Health podcast.
Professor O’Shea has recently started using social media to combat misinformation when it comes to diet and nutrition. The Obesity expert explained, “I wanted to get the facts out there because I had people coming up to me in the hospital saying, ‘tell me exactly when I should start the carnivore diet? and how long I should be on it for?’ I was going, eh no. I said, look we publish papers, we write review articles that go into medical journals, but it’s an echo chamber. Opinion and behaviour is formed out on social media.”
During the conversation, the HSE Lead for Obesity said that there is some good news for the current status of Obesity in Ireland. He highlighted that, “number one, we have levelled off in our obesity rates overall so we are no longer climbing. Secondly, we did not get the bump in obesity rates in childhood during COVID that were seen in other European countries.”
You can listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts.