The way modern homes, schools, restaurants and shops are set up is leading people to be ‘fat by design', a major conference on obesity has been told.

Speaking at the conference in Dublin, leading food psychologist, Prof Brian Wansink of Cornell University in the US, pointed out that people now arrange their environments so that treats are easier to select than healthier foods.

"As we've gotten older, wiser, and lazier, we've gradually arranged our homes to make our favourite tasty foods easier to find and eat. While the same thing has been happening all around us, restaurants have made it easier to order larger portions of food, supermarkets have made it easier to buy greater quantities, all of which combined have led us to become fat by design," he said.

Also speaking at the event, Dr Muireann Cullen, manager of the Nutrition and Health Foundation (NHF), which organised the conference, highlighted the prevalence of excess weight in Ireland.

"Study after study finds that almost a quarter of our population are obese with further high percentages overweight," she noted.

In fact, findings from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing by Trinity College Dublin has found that four out of five people over the age of 50 in Ireland are overweight or obese.

The conference was held in the Gibson Hotel in Dublin.