News

28th May 2004

Childhood obesity is big problem

Improving children's eating habits is the key to tackling an obesity "timebomb", MPs have warned.

The Commons Health Select Committee says obesity costs England £3.7bn a year and warns levels of diabetes, cancer and heart disease will rise and attacks the government, food industry and advertisers for failing to act to stop rising levels of obesity.

The report comes after news that a three year old girl died from a hear attack due to being extremely overweight. The little girl weighed about 6 stone, nearly three times more than the healthy weight of a child that age.

The Committee says that childhood obesity has tripled in the past 20 years and is calling for annual fat tests for children. It also warns that fat children of today could become the first generation to die before their parents.

One of the recommendations is for a 'traffic light food labelling system' in which red would identify high-energy foods which were high in sugar and fat, amber would be medium energy and green would identify the healthiest options. Some supermarkets, such as the Co-op, already employ this system and Tescos have announced plans for a similar one.

The food industry has come under severe criticism in the report especially regarding campaigns which encourage children to "pester" parents for junk foods.

Committee chairman David Hinchliffe said, "We have lost the plot with public health perhaps for the last 30 years. Our inquiry is a wake-up call for government to show that the causes of ill health need to be tackled by many departments, not just health.

Health Secretary John Reid said the government shared the committee's concerns over the health impact of obesity and confirmed that it would be addressed in the White Paper on Public Health, due out in the summer.

Doctors at the Royal London Hospital, where the three year old died, have also seen four children with sleep apnoea due to extreme obesity.

Dr Sheila McKenzie, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal London, told the Health Select Committee, "In the past two years one child at the age of three has died of heart failure secondary to extreme obesity."

Commenting on the four cases of sleep apnoea, a condition where the airways become blocked by folds of fat whilst asleep, she stated, "In other words, they are being choked by their own fat."

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