More than 220m children will be obese by 2040 without drastic action, report warns

Key Highlights

• That equates to two in five US children having obesity or being overweight. In the UK, about 3.8 million children have high BMI, a record – making it among the worst performing countries in Europe, with around twice the numbers of overweight and obese children as in France and Italy. The report estimates that by 2040, 370,000 children aged between 5 to 19 in the UK are expected to have signs of cardiovascular disease, and 271,000 are estimated to show signs of hypertension. The report identifies significant regional inequalities.
• The 10 countries where more than half of school-age children are overweight or have obesity are all in the western Pacific region or the Americas, while the fastest growth in obesity rates is predominantly in low- and middle-income countries. The report calls for greater efforts to create healthy environments, including sugar taxes, limits on junk food advertising and policies to help children lead more active lives. Global experts welcomed the findings.
• Dr Kremlin Wickramasinghe, regional adviser for nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the World Health Organization, Europe, said that childhood obesity was a “failure of environments”. He called for mandatory, rather than voluntary, marketing restrictions or front-of-pack labelling.
• “The majority of governments – including many in Europe – are allowing the food industry to target children without restriction,” he said.
• “What we need is the political will to take action and stand up to industry interference.”Katharine Jenner, executive director of the Obesity Health Alliance, said childhood obesity was “not inevitable”.