Thanks to increasing consumption of fast food and decreasing physical activity due to the Internet and technology boom, the number of overweight children globally is set to increase leaps and bounds by 2010, a study published in the
International Journal of Pediatric Obesity has said. This rise is likely to affect not only the healthcare scenario but also the economy of different countries, the report said.
Warning of an obesity epidemic, the researchers said almost 50 per cent of all American children would be overweight by the end of the decade. Following them closely would be European children, 38 per cent of which would be classified as overweight or obese.
Among other countries that would see a rise in childhood obesity are Brazil, Chile, Egypt and Mexico, as also regions like the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Under the study, the researchers reviewed studies related to weight gain among school children from over 25 countries and pre-school kids from 42 countries, conducted between 1980 and 2005. In addition, they also analyzed data obtained from the World Health Organization (WHO).
They found that obesity seemed to be growing rapidly in most countries, riding on junk food and lack of exercise. Over 10 per cent of European children would be obese by 2010. The increase in Middle East was pegged at 11.5 per cent, while in the Americas they would be 15.2 per cent. Asia, however, was much better off with 5.3 per cent.
“This is going to be the first generation that's going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. It's like the plague is in town and no one is interested,” said Dr Phillip Thomas, an obesity specialist from the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), the group that analyzed the data.
IOTF's Tim Lobstein, lead author of the study, said, “The obesity estimates are very cautious but extremely worrying. When we looked at the figures it was astonishing that nearly half of children in both North and South America could be overweight in just four years' time. In Europe we are seeing substantial increases with overweight numbers at 38 per cent – up 60 per cent on the level that we saw throughout the 1990s.”
In a comment accompanying the report, IOTF's obesity specialist Philip James said, “We have truly a global epidemic, which appears to be affecting most countries in the world. We may well be markedly underestimating the morbidity relating to this problem.” He blamed growing consumption of junk food among children not only from the West but also from Asia and the Middle East for the menace. “They're being bombarded like they are in the West to eat all the wrong foods. The Western world's food industries without even realizing it have precipitated an epidemic with enormous health consequences,” Dr James said.
The researchers added that the only way to prevent this health catastrophe is preventing children from gorging on fat-laden foods and inculcating in them the habit of exercising. “We can only do this if we seriously ... cut down the consumption of empty extra calories in high fat and high sugar food products, and do much more to improve children's opportunities to be active.”
