Obesity Forecast to Double Experts Warn 

26/10/06 Alarming new forecasts of soaring obesity rates among children and adults were revealed by experts as a top level obesity summit convened in Montreal yesterday.

Nearly 287 million children could be overweight or obese by 2010 - 85% more than a decade earlier. But the overall obese population could rise to more than 700 million by 2015, with nearly 2.3 billion overweight globally – without taking account a lower overweight threshold set for Asians.

The worst affected countries would be the USA and Canada, where half of all adults are likely to be obese with only one in five people of healthy weight.

The latest estimates were disclosed by the International Obesity TaskForce (IOTF) as top economists, business executives, management and international health experts gathered for the McGill Integrative Health Challenge Think Tank in Montreal to consider what major changes in society are needed to halt the rise in childhood obesity.

The think tank has been convened by McGill University’s Faculties of Management and of Medicine, in collaboration with the Global Prevention Alliance, a group of five international NGOs, working to combat childhood obesity and obesity-related chronic diseases.

Prof Philip James, who chairs IOTF and the Presidential Council of the Alliance, warned that a ‘cataclysmic slide’ was occuring with overweight and obesity rates already moving close to a tipping point which would make recovery very difficult.

“The rapid deterioration in diet and weight-related health is already becoming very obvious. One in three people born in the USA today is expected to develop type 2 diabetes, and the rest of the world is heading in the same direction,” he said.

“This tragic and wholly preventable global pandemic of obesity has developed such a momentum that it can only be confronted successfully by tackling childhood obesity head on, as one of the most urgent strategic priorities for the whole of society.

“We must all be ready to take radical steps to protect our children, and to address the dietary health of adults, so that we can start to create a better environment for children to grow up in,” added Prof James.

He praised the McGill initiative for bringing together business leaders and economists to help develop a “societal plan” to combat childhood obesity. An IOTF report presented to the Montreal think tank argues that the obesity epidemic is in part a consequence of historic food policies which have led to distorted food supplies and prices. It proposes that subsidies should be removed from oil, fats and sugars, and fruit and vegetables production should be favoured to encourage consumption. The report available online from www.iotf.org/media/iotfsocplan251006.pdf outlines a series of the key measures needed to address the obesity epidemic, including:

- Price – incentive pricing to encourage consumers to switch to healthier diets

- Availability –wider distribution of healthier produce and restricted availability of ‘junk food’

- Marketing – better international controls to protect children from targeting on TV and internet

Other proposals include addressing urban development, planning and design to ensure the built environment favours pedestrian use and cyclist safety.

“We need to follow the American business maxim and ‘think outside the box’. The idea that we can just educate people and suddenly things will change just isn’t realistic. There is little hope of succeeding given the sheer scale of the problem we are now facing both in the developed and in most developing countries. We must move rapidly to devise and implement coherent societal solutions”, warned Prof James, who is president-elect of IASO.

He said he was inviting practical and financial support from organisations and benefactors to help the Global Prevention Alliance develop and expand its programmes to develop strategic approaches to combating childhood obesity throughout the world.