Third of Children are Too Fat

More than a third of all children are either overweight or obese, UK government figures showed yesterday.

A quarter of 11 to 15 year olds are classified as obese - double the proportion 10 years ago. Among boys the proportion rose from 13.5 per cent to 24.2 per cent and among girls from 15.4 per cent to 26.7 per cent.

When overweight and obesity were taken together, the percentage for girls was 46 and for boys 37 per cent.

Even in children aged two to 10, the proportion of boys classed as obese rose from 9.6 per to 15.9 per cent and in girls from 10.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent.

About 2,000 children aged two to 15 took part in the survey. Their Body Mass Index was calculated by dividing their weight - in stones or kilos - by their height - in feet or metres - squared. A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is healthy; between 25 and 29.5 is overweight and over 30 is obese.

Figures for adults were no better. Almost one adult in four is now obese; rising from 13 per cent to 24 per cent in men and from 16 per cent to 24 per cent in women. The figures from the Government's Health Survey were released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Prof Colin Waine, the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said they revealed a "public health time bomb". Children who are obese aged 11 to 15 are twice as likely to die when they are 50.

He said: "This is serious news because obesity in adolescence is associated with the premature onset of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. It really augurs very badly for the future health of the population as these children move from adolescence to adulthood. This will have a significant impact on longevity and we are in danger of raising a generation of people who have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. "This is a public health timebomb as these children move into adult life."

He said increased inactivity, including not walking or cycling to school, together with more "energy-dense foods" were fuelling the crisis.

"Being obese at adolescence increases the cancer risk by 21 per cent for girls and 14 per cent for boys," he said. "In my youth, playing cricket and tennis was the norm. These have now been replaced by sedentary activities such as watching television and playing video games."

Amanda Eden, a care adviser at Diabetes UK, said: "We know that 80 per cent of people with diabetes are overweight or obese at diagnosis. We will soon be seeing our children growing up losing limbs and becoming blind as they develop the serious complications of having the condition. A firmer line needs to be taken to force the food industry to adhere to food labelling guidelines so that people know what's in the food they buy."

Barbara Harpham, the director of the charity Heart Research UK, said: "Parents need to wake up to the fact that it is up to them to make sure their children eat properly and lay down a foundation for good health. Giving your kids treats may make you feel good now, but imagine how you will feel 20 years down the line?" Caroline Flint, the public health minister, said: "We have taken huge steps forward already and are starting to change attitudes through the school fruit scheme and more investment in school food and sport."

Andrew Lansley, the shadow Health Secretary said: "There is no excuse for complacency and delay. We need active and competent, cross-governmental measures and we need them now."
The Daily Telegraph, Health Section, 24th April 2006

TV Adds a Stone a Year to a Child's Weight
by Roya Nikkhah

Watching television for an hour can increase a child's dietary intake by 167 calories and add more than a stone to their weight over a year, scientists have established.

The calorie calculation - up to nine per cent of a child's recommended daily intake - marks the first time that an exact figure has been put on the impact of television on children's diets.

Researchers also discovered that children were eating significantly larger quantities of the snacks, sweets and fast foods that they had seen advertised most frequently on television.

The new study has prompted calls from British health experts for "urgently needed" guidelines on the amount of television children should watch to prevent a further escalation of the country's child obesity crisis.

One million two- to 15-year-olds in Britain are now either overweight or obese, and the condition has been linked with a sharp increase in children in the type of diabetes normally seen in middle-aged adults. Doctors say the current generation of British children will be the first since the Second World War to live shorter lives than their parents.

The new study examined the television viewing, eating habits and physical activity of more than 500 children aged 11 and 12 over 20 months.

Forty-three per cent of the sample group increased the amount of television they watched over the period of the study. At the start, scientists recorded how much food the children were eating and measured its calorie content.

They then compared it with the food and calories the children were consuming after 20 months, set against their individual increases in television viewing. Each additional hour of viewing meant, on average, that a child had consumed an extra 167 calories.

The research was carried out by a team from Harvard University and is published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Jean Wiecha, a senior research scientist and one of the authors of the report, When Children Eat What They Watch, said the findings confirmed the link between increased television viewing and rising levels of childhood obesity. She was particularly concerned by the correlation between weight gains and the sorts of food advertising to which children are increasingly subjected.

"The perception is that children watching television only gain weight because they are sitting and snacking in front of the screen and doing less physical activity," she said. "But when we compared the children's daily calorie intake at the end of the study with what they were consuming at the start, the majority of the increase in calories was explained by them eating more of the snack foods they had seen advertised."

A second study, at Michigan University, found that young children exposed to two or more hours of television a day were three times more likely to be overweight than children watching fewer than two hours.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two be limited to less than two hours of television a day but there is no official guidance in Britain. It has been estimated, however, that British children now spend as much as 53 hours a week - seven and a half hours a day - watching television, up from 38 hours a decade ago.

It is feared that this means weight problems linked with television could be even worse here than in America, where children watch an average of seven hours a day. Last night, Paul Gateley, a professor of exercise and obesity at Leeds Metropolitan University, called on the Government to recommend that children watch less than two hours of television a day.

"The lack of Government guidance on this is one of the biggest problems with the obesity issue," he said.

Prof Mary Rudolf, a paediatrician for the East Leeds Primary Care Trust, who specialises in childhood nutrition and obesity, said that "strong guidance from policy makers is now absolutely essential".

"These studies clearly show that television and its advertising play a large part in the childhood obesity epidemic. If we have a five-a-day fruit and vegetable guideline from the Department of Health we should have similar guidance on watching television."
The Daily Telegraph, 9th April 2006