Childhood obesity-linked conditions are set to rise sharply by 2025

New global estimates indicate that obesity-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndromen, fatty liver and glucose intolerance, will keep rising to reach new record high by 2025, unless there is sufficient government involvement to tackle the issue.
According to the new figures, published on World Obesity Day in the journal Pediatric Obesity, some 268 million children aged 5-17 years may become overweight, and 91 million could be obese by 2025.
Projected trends for obesity-related conditions in children are worrying too, with up to 12 million having impaired glucose tolerance and four million at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Researchers also believe that 27 million of children could have hypertensio, and 38 million could suffer from fatty liver disease.
It is now well known that obese children are around five times more likely to become obese adults, and that carrying too much weight increases the chance of developing other metabolic diseases.
On the same day that this report was released, new calculations by Cancer Research UK showed that children often start putting on too much weight during their formative years.
The charity has found that nearly 1.7 million children have started secondary school overweight or obese during the last decade.
This research also indicates that the World Health Organisation (WHO) targets to limit childhood obesity by 2025 will likely not be met, foretelling a future of ill health for the younger generation.
As a result of the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes, alongside other leading causes of death, this generation is likely to be the first generation ever not to live longer than their parents.
The World Obesity Federation (WOF) has subsequently called for urgent government action around the globe to tackle the issue.
There are lots of potential causes of this deterioration of our health, but there is one major factor that is associated with all the conditions mentioned earlier in this article, and it is the over-consumption of sugar.
Measures like the well expected tax on sugary drinks, whose introduction has recently been backed by WHO, can make a difference in the fight against the global diabesity epidemic.
A 20 per cent price increase could reduce consumption of sweet drinks by the same proportio, and drinking fewer of these calorific sweet drinks is one way to curb excessive weight gain and prevent chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes.