'Fizzy drink tax' to stop UK being 'fat man of Europe'

This report does not pretend to have all the answers. But it does say we need together to do more, starting right now, before the problem becomes worse and the NHS can no longer cope.’   Where did the report come from and why was it carried out? The report, ‘Measuring Up: The medical profession’s prescription for the nation’s obesity crisis’, was written by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and published this month. It reveals how data from the 2009-11 Health Survey for England suggests that the UK is the ‘fat man of Europe’. The survey showed that one quarter of men and women in England are obese (defined as a body mass index [BMI] over 30) and that two thirds of adults are obese or overweight (BMI over 25). Another worrying trend highlighted by the report is that the 2011-12 National Child Measurement Programme reported that one in five children aged 10-11 is obese and one in three is overweight or obese. Over the last 20 years, the number of morbidly obese adults (BMI over 40) is said to have more than doubled and now stands at over 1 million UK citizens. The report is said to represent the views of the vast majority of the UK’s 220,000 practicing doctors, who are ‘united in seeing the epidemic of obesity as the greatest public health crisis facing the UK’. It is said to be ‘unprecedented’ for medical colleges and faculties to come together like this, but they have done so in recognition of the massive crisis that is happening and the fa...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet QA articles Obesity Source Type: news