Parents 'to outlive obese children'

By STEVE CONNOR

LEICESTER - Parents may soon be outliving their children because of the rising level of obesity among youngsters who have high-calorie diets but take little exercise, says a specialist in nutrition.

The lifespan of seriously obese children could be shortened up to nine years as they succumbed to potentially fatal disorders such as heart disease and diabetes, Andrew Prentice, professor of international nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the British Association's Science Festival in Leicester.

"These young people, who are being ambushed by the environment, are storing up for themselves enormous ill-health for the future.

"We also know that the younger you are when you are obese has severe long-lasting effects on the ill-health associated with it."

About one in five Britons is clinically obese and half are seriously overweight, but the proportion is rising among children and adolescents because of a combination of factors, mainly a sedentary lifestyle and a tendency to eat fast-food.

"This is a fascinating moment in human evolution because it is happening so suddenly," said Prentice.

"The kids, in particular, are very susceptible to all these changes in habit. The longer you are obese, the more likely it is that you will accrue all the damaging side-effects of obesity.

"The important point is that it is biologically predictable. We've spent millions of pounds trying to find out something weird and wonderful about our metabolism that causes people to become obese, and I've come to the conclusion that it is blindingly obvious.

"There is no mystery at all and it is a perfectly predictable biological response to a changed environment," he said.

"The kids of today aren't gluttonous or lazy. They've been ambushed by living in an environment where they haven't seen any different."

Human body shape was undergoing one of the most dramatic shifts in evolutionary history, said Prentice.

"The last such shift in our shape occurred about two centuries ago in Europe and involved an increase in average adult height by 30cm or more."

An increase in height was linked with a generally better diet and health, he said. But an increase in girth could lead to chronic diseases ranging from osteo-arthritis and high blood pressure, to frequently fatal conditions such as type-2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

"If anything, the obesity pandemic is gathering pace rather than slowing down," said Prentice, "and current interventions are only marginally effective and very expensive.

"We've got to have action in every walk of life, from transport policy, to food and advertising of foods to children, to safety policy so that children can walk to school, to education with more emphasis on exercise."

- INDEPENDENT

Further reading:
nzherald.co.nz/health