OBESITY threatens to become the curse of the next millennium, leading experts warned at a major international conference in Paris today (Monday).
Unless governments around the world can agree to take urgent and decisive action, people will be faced with soaring medical costs and will suffer from a range of weight-related illnesses, which could cripple health systems.
New forecasts from the International Obesity Task Force predict that obesity could affect nearly half the population of the United States within one generation. Countries such as Australia, and the United Kingdom will be close runners up with one in three affected by obesity.
"Obesity can no longer be sidelined as a medical issue. It is a serious disease, which can be life threatening and brings with it a range of other illnesses from heart disease and diabetes to stroke and cancer. And it is becoming rampant throughout many parts of the world," said Prof Philip James, chairman of the task force set up to report on the global epidemic of obesity.
The so-called lifestyle disease is no longer confined to the affluent West. Even the People's Republic of China - which has 70 million overweight - has introduced special measures to try to stave off rising levels of obesity and encourage people to take up healthier exercise instead of sitting watching television.
"There is no doubt that the developing world is hungry to acquire the trappings of western affluence. They must act quickly and with determination as they are already beginning to follow the West down the road towards overweight and obesity with all the medical complications that ensue," added Prof James, who also chairs a United Nations commission on nutrition.
The IOTF call for action was supported by three other key task force members, Prof George Bray, president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO), the association's president-elect Prof Stephan Rössner and Congress president Prof Bernard Guy-Grand.
Prof Rössner, who chaired a prevention symposium in Stockholm prior to the Paris congress, said: "We are emphasizing the need to begin tackling the problem earlier, to deal with childhood weight problems and to completely rethink the way we approach physical activity and diet to ensure a healthy, active lifestyle."
Prof Bernard Guy-Grand, added: "There is an urgent need to increase the support for research into all aspects of obesity - its causes, its management and its prevention - if we are to avoid this growing toll on individual health and collective health service costs."
For further information contact:
Neville Rigby, communications director, IOTF - in Paris +44 410 270980