Child obesity in UK and USA Alarming

I am not a child but I realized from my own experience that obesity is a devastating thing. I have been fighting with it for the last few months and I won the battle against it for the time being. Well, I am determined to push myself and go back to BIM index of under 25 as soon as possible. Today, I felt sad to see two reports about USA and UK. Children in both these countries are suffering from this problem now a days.

There is a strong warning that in UK, nearly 10% of children may become obese by 2010.

BBC reported:

Researchers said obesity rates among the lower classes were likely to be significantly higher by 2015 - for girls the levels may even be double.

They analysed data gathered by the government-funded Health Survey for England.

Currently 6.9% of boys and 7.4% of girls are obese - with the difference between the lower and higher classes 0.6% and 1.5% respectively for boys and girls.    

But using historical trends, they predicted that by 2015 obesity rates could be above 10% for boys and 8.9% for girls.

This will become a national problem for England in 2015. The economic cost will be too much. Well, I am not that much surprised because fast food culture is now very popular in the western countries.

The picture is not rosy for USA either. Children are bombarded with fast food advertisements every day and now, there is a growing call to do something about that.

CNN reported:

The proposals come on the backdrop of concerns expressed by public health advocates and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz that the food industry isn't doing enough to limit the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Food and beverage companies spend $1.6 billion annually on ads aimed at children, according to an FTC report on food marketing and obesity from 2008. The FTC plans to update that report in 2010, and Leibowitz said he plans to send subpoenas to 44 food and beverage companies soon to get their marketing data. The FTC sent similar subpoenas to companies in 2007.

It is clear that both UK and USA are losing the battle against obesity. The main problem is that fast food industry has become very big and can easily afford to spend millions of dollars for marketing their products.