Epidemic: 38% EU children overweight by 2010

ALMOST two out of every five children in the EU will be overweight in four years time, creating massive problems for everything from public health care to economies, a new study has found.

A report by the International Journal of Paediatric Obesity says that in the European Union, about 38% of all children will be overweight by 2010 if present trends continue up from 25% in recent surveys.

Nearly half of the children in North and South America will be overweight, up from what recent studies say is about one-third.

"We have truly a global epidemic which appears to be affecting most countries in the world," said Dr Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force and author of an editorial in the journal warning of the trend.

The percentages of overweight children also are expected to increase significantly in the Middle East and South-East Asia.

Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Egypt have rates comparable with fully industrialised nations, Dr James said. He estimated that, for example, one in five children in China will be overweight by 2010. "They're being bombarded like they are in the West to eat all the wrong foods. The Western world's food industries, without even realising it, have precipitated an epidemic with enormous health consequences," he said.

Dr James said children are "being exposed to the world's marketing might", arguing that governments should step in. "There needs to be a ban on all forms of marketing, not just television adverts."

Researchers analysed a variety of published medical reports on obesity from 1980 to 2005 and World Health Organisation data. They tracked the growth rate of obesity in school-age populations in 25 countries and in pre-schoolers in 42 countries. Researchers concluded that the prevalence of childhood obesity increased in almost all the countries for which data were available, a trend fuelled by more sedentary lives and the increasing availability of junk food, among other factors. The public health consequences of the trend alarm experts, said Dr Phillip Thomas, a surgeon unconnected to the study who works extensively with obese patients in Manchester. Because obese children tend to carry the problem into adulthood, Dr Thomas and other doctors say they will tend to be sicker as they get older, suffering from heart disease, stroke and other ailments stemming from weight.

"This is going to be the first generation that's going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents," Thomas said. "It's like the plague is in town and no one is interested."

Another doctor who examined the journal report was Dr Brian McCrindle, a childhood obesity expert and professor of paediatrics with a paediatric hospital in Toronto. He warned that the looming problem must be addressed.