Fast food nation

THE nightmare scenario facing modern Ireland is clear: unless children stop eating so much junk food and do more exercise, they risk dying before their parents do.

This is no Doomsday scenario dreamt up by scaremongers but a very real prediction from dieticians and medics worried about the health of the nation’s children. So worried, in fact, that they use terms normally reserved for tabloid media — such as crisis and epidemic.

Professional nutritionist Margot Brennan from the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute says: “Certainly we have a huge problem with obesity and being overweight in the population at the moment.