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An open letter to politicians on climate change and obesity

Garry J Egger, Boyd Swinburn, Fiona Stanley and Kerryn Phelps
Med J Aust 2010; 192 (6): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03550.x
Published online: 15 March 2010

To the Editor: As health professionals, we urge Australian politicians (and the public) to recognise the overlap in the underlying cause of two great health threats that our population now faces: the rise of obesity and its life-threatening disease consequences, and the great threats to health from global climate change.1-3


  • 1 Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW.
  • 2 Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC.
  • 3 University of Western Australia, Perth, WA.
  • 4 University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.


Correspondence: garry.egger@scu.edu.au

Acknowledgements: 

Plus over 300 medical and health practitioners, including 40 professors of medicine or health sciences (names available from authors on request).

  • 1. Haines A, Wilkinson P, Tonne C, Roberts I. Aligning climate change and public health policies. Lancet 2009; 374: 2035-2038.
  • 2. Bloomberg MR, Aggarwala RT. Think locally, act globally: how curbing global warming emissions can improve local public health. Am J Prev Med 2008; 35: 414-423.
  • 3. Edwards P, Roberts I. Population adiposity and climate change. Int J Epidemiol 2009; 38: 1137-1140.
  • 4. Delpeuch F, Maire B, Monnier E, Holdsworth M. Globesity: a planet out of control. London: Earthscan, 2009.
  • 5. Tapia Granados JA, Ionides EL. The reversal of the relation between economic growth and health progress: Sweden in the 19th and 20th centuries. J Health Econ 2008; 27: 544-563.
  • 6. Rao M. Climate change is deadly: the health impacts of climate change. In: Griffiths J, Rao M, Adshead F, Thorpe A, editors. The health practitioner’s guide to climate change. London: Earthscan, 2009.
  • 7. Haines A, Smith KR, Anderson D, et al. Policies for accelerating access to clean energy, improving health, advancing development and mitigating climate change. Lancet 2007; 370: 1264-1281.
  • 8. Jackson T. Prosperity without growth: economics for a finite planet. London: Earthscan, 2009.

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