World Obesity Day

Posted on: 11th October 2016

October 11th is World Obesity Day. Vanessa Hebditch, the Trusts Communications and Policy Director has written a blog highlighting the similarities in the current Government’s approach to the regulation of alcohol and high sugar foods. http://www.ias.org.uk/Blog/Tackling-obesity-parallels-with-alcohol.aspx

The World Obesity Federation has published a special study for World Obesity Day, giving alarming evidence on how high childhood obesity rates will climb by 2025 if governments fail to take action. The study also predicts how many children will suffer from related diseases such as Type-2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

The paper, entitled Planning for the worst: estimates of obesity and comorbidities in school-age children in 2025, is published in the journal Pediatric Obesity (link to paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijpo.12185/full

Whilst being overweight is a known risk factor for many conditions, many people are unaware that it also greatly increases your chance of developing non alcohol related fatty liver disease. Obesity and alcohol are two of the main reasons for the huge increases in the numbers of people being diagnosed with liver disease.

You can read the Guardian’s coverage here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/07/junk-food-shortening-lives-children-obesity-diabetes-data