Beware of childhood obesity

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I have just learnt from the Medical News Today that obesity is not just a problem for the USA nor is it limited to other developed countries either -- it is a problem that has spread throughout the globe. Obesity is now recognized as an insidious killer and the major contributing cause of preventable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, according to Professor Paul Zimmet, chairman of the 10th International Congress on Obesity, Sydney, Australia.
Health care professionals now say that the problem of childhood obesity/overweight is so serious that we could be seeing, for the first time in human history, the possibility of millions of parents outliving their children. Overweight/obesity affects more people on our planet than undernourishment. In other words, there are more fat people in the world than underfed people. Obesity is now the greatest contributor to chronic diseases. Childhood obesity was the major theme in the 10th International Congress on Obesity. Experts say that obesity among children is a problem that will manifest itself in a big way when these obese/overweight children grow up. If nothing is done to combat the problem we will be facing massive chronic health consequences.
According to Prof. Kate Steinbeck, Sydney Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, a huge number of children today may die before their parents because of obesity. Exactly how many obese/overweight people there are in the world today is hard to tell. The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are about 1 billion obese/overweight people, of whom 300 million are obese. If this is an accurate estimate, obesity/overweight is now a world epidemic. There are 800 million underweight people worldwide.
The International Obesity Task Force has revealed that 1.7 billion of the world's 6 billion people are overweight or obese. Packaged food and fast-food chains are multiplying in new economies and this has led to obesity, which the WHO calls a "global epidemic". I don't have any information about Bangladesh but in a recent survey in India, 55 per cent of women between 20 and 69 were found to be overweight. Junk food causes the fatal fat. How can such foods be a healthy choice?
Avik Sengupta
Biochemistry Department,
McGill University,
Canada
Email : avik.sengupta@mail.mcgill.ca