Professor Donal O'Shea, HSE Lead for Obesity, utilizes social media to share accurate information regarding diet and nutrition. Many people approach him with specific questions about diets like the carnivore diet, leading him to acknowledge the limitations of traditional medical publications. On a more positive note, he noted that obesity rates in Ireland have stabilized, and there was no significant increase in childhood obesity during COVID, contrasting with trends in other European nations.
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.
Number one, we have leveled 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.
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