Couch potato…more kids are living on fast food diets

Children are getting so fat they may be the first generation to die before their parents, an expert claimed yesterday.

Today's youngsters are already falling prey³ to potential killers⁴ such as diabetes⁵ because of their weight.

Fatty fast-food diets combined with sedentary lifestyles dominated by televisions and computers could mean kids will die tragically⁶ young, says Professor Andrew Prentice, from the London School of Hygiene⁷ and Tropical Medicine.

At the the same time, the shape of the human body is going through a huge evolutionary⁸ shift because adults are getting so fat.

Here in Britain, latest research shows that the average waist size for a man is 36-38in and may be 42-44in by 2032. This compares with only 32.6in in 1972.

Women's waists have grown from an average of 22in in 1920 to 24 ins in the Fifties and 30in now.

One of the major reasons why children now are at greater risk is that we are getting fatter younger.

In the UK alone, more than one million under-16s are classed as overweight or obese - double the number in the mid-Eighties. One in ten four-year-olds are also medically classified as obese.

The obesity⁹ pandemic - an extensive epidemic¹⁰ - which started in the US, has now spread to Europe, Australasia, Central America and the Middle East.

Many nations now record more than 20 per cent of their population as clinically obese and well over half the population as overweight.

Prof Prentice said the change in our shape has been caused by a glut¹¹ of easily available high-energy foods combined with a dramatic drop in the energy we use as a result of technology developments.

He is not alone in his concern. Only last week one medical journal revealed how obesity was fuelling a rise in cancer cases.

Obesity also increases the risk factor for strokes and heart disease as well as a diabetes.

An averagely obese person's lifespan is shortened by around nine years while a severely¹² obese person by many more.

Prof Prentice said: "So will parents outlive their children, as claimed recently by an American obesity specialist?

"The answer is yes - and no. Yes, when the offspring become grossly obese. This is now becoming an alarmingly common occurrence in the US.

"Such children and adolescents have a greatly reduced quality of life in terms of both their physical and psychosocial health."

So say No to that doughnut and burger .