Health Chief Looks At Little Picture

The Age

Thursday March 6, 2008

Nick Miller, Health Editor

FOR years, Rob Moodie looked at health in terms of "population". From his high eyrie as chief executive of VicHealth, he balanced figures and weighed policies that would, hopefully, lead to a healthier state.

Increasingly, though, he is starting to think about the individuals who make up that population.

Now professor of global health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, he has co-authored a book with celebrity chef Gabriel Gate called Recipes for a Great Life.

"This (book) is me fundamentally trying to look at (health and wellbeing) from a different perspective: just us as individuals. What decisions do we make? What are we trying to do to get a good life?" he said.

The connection to food was a significant one, because obesity is the villain behind so many modern health problems.

"I read an extraordinary article recently, that all we need is to have lap bands and give people anti-obesity pills - just quite ludicrous - from a clinician! We fundamentally need to make activity and good food economically viable. At the moment the commerce is stacked against us: inactivity is promoted far more than activity."

In his book he covers a range of advice: how to maintain a relationship, how to get closer to your community, how to find inner peace through meditation.

His passion is preventive health: improving the health system by making disease less prevalent, rather than just researching more and more expensive ways to cure the sick.

"We spend 3% of our health budget on prevention, which is 50% of the problem," he said. "Cars, inactive entertainment and junk food are promoted far more than healthy (alternatives).

"If you could get 80% of kids to walk or ride to school, you would take a million cars off the road."

He hopes that preventive health will form a big part of the recently announced federal Health Reform Commission and the upcoming Australia 2020 summit, although he does not yet have an official role in either.

© 2008 The Age

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