610 | Veterinary Record | December 20/27, 2014 Feature Feature ONE HEALTH Canine and feline obesity: a One Health perspective OVER the past decade, there has been a growing awareness of the need for collaboration between the fields of human and veterinary medicine. Initially, efforts in this new area of One Health focused on preventing the spread of disease from farm animals and wild animals into human populations. More recently, there has been a growing awareness of the role of companion animals in One Health. Thus, in 2010, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) established a One Health committee with the remit of ‘positioning small companion animals in the global One Health framework’ (Day 2010). This committee has so far focused on the spread of zoonotic diseases from dogs, cats and other pet animals to humans. However, it also envisions two other future fields of work: comparative medicine and the human-animal bond. In both fields, however, the focus is rather human-centred. According to the chair of the committee, Michael Day, the motivation for comparative medicine is that ‘The study of spontaneously arising canine and feline diseases holds great potential for understanding the human counterparts.’ The importance of studying the human- animal bond is justified by reference to the Recent years have seen a drastic increase in the rates of overweight and obesity among people living in some developed nations. There has also been increased concern over obesity in companion animals. In the latest article in Veterinary Record’s series on One Health, Peter Sandøe and colleagues argue that the relationship between obesity in people and in companion animals is closer and more complex than previously thought, and that obesity should be treated as a One Health problem Peter Sandøe, MA, DPhil, Department of Food and Resource Economics and Department of Large Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: pes@sund.ku.dk Clare Palmer, BA (Hons), DPhil, Department of Philosophy, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas, USA Sandra Corr, BVMS, CertSAS, DipECVS, FHEA, PhD, MRCVS, School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK Arne Astrup, MD, DMSc, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Charlotte Reinhard Bjørnvad, DVM, PhD, DiplECVCN, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark A cat weighing more than 16 kg relinquished to an animal shelter in the USA. Obesity is increasingly being recognised in companion animals, and the link between obesity in pets and their owners demands a two-way approach Photo: AP/Press Association Images ‘We cannot hope to understand feline and canine obesity without also knowing something about human obesity, the social status of owners, and the relationships that humans actually have with their dogs and cats’ concern. However, the human-centred One Health approach, in which the study of animal health is seen merely as a means to improving human health, is questionable. In this review of canine and feline obesity, we argue that, through collaboration between researchers in human and veterinary medicine, optimal health for both humans and animals can be achieved, and that this should be seen as central to the One Health concept (AVMA 2008). We will consider One Health as a two-way affair. We will not only look at how studying the effects of overweight and obesity in dogs and cats can contribute to understanding human health; we will also consider how insights from the study of human obesity can, in turn, benefit dogs and cats. In addition, we will look at how human obesity is connected with weight problems in dogs and cats. Defining overweight and obese In dogs and cats, as in people, a distinction is drawn between being overweight and being obese. Being overweight can be defined as having a body composition where the levels of body fat exceed those considered optimal ‘benefit to human health and wellbeing from association with pet animals’ (Day 2010). One of the key issues here, Professor Day argues, is obesity: ‘probably the most important health issue of man and pets in Western countries is the shared epidemic of obesity that is often directly related to aspects of this shared lifestyle’ (Day 2010). Professor Day’s last point here is significant: obesity in humans, dogs and cats is a major problem, and clearly a One Health group.bmj.com on May 29, 2017 - Published by http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ Downloaded from