- HELSINKI (Reuters) - Obesity
has spiralled into a worldwide epidemic affecting 250 million adults but
a leading nutritional expert believes the worst is still to come.
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- Overweight adolescents are on course to fuel an even
bigger global health problem as they mature into obese adults, he says.
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- "The younger generation, the generation after us,
will be even more obese than we are, which doesn't make the future look
very promising," Dr Mikael Fogelholm said in an interview.
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- The chairman of the 12th European Congress on Obesity,
which begins in Helsinki on Thursday, said the prevalence of obesity among
adolescents has increased more rapidly than among the middle-aged population.
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- "We can't expect that the present generation will
die and we will have a lean generation," added Fogelholm, who is also
the director of the independent UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research
in Finland.
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- A steady, and in some cases life-long, diet of high-fat
fast foods and idle hours in front of the television and computer, has
taken its toll on children.
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- "Most obese adults now had not been obese children,"
Fogelholm said. "They obtained their extra kilos (pounds) after they
were 25 or 30 years old. But now we have more and more people who are already
obese at the age of 10, 15 or 20.
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- "If the trend goes on, the future doesn't look better.
It looks worse unless we can find a way to prevent obesity."
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- Along with expanding waistlines, being overweight or
obese increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes and
certain cancer. In the United States, where over half of the adult population
is obese or overweight, obesity costs about $93 billion a year in medical
expenses.
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- Elsewhere obesity rates range from two percent in some
developing countries, to 80 percent on remote Pacific Islands and about
20 percent in Western countries.
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- Fogelholm believes the solution to the problem must begin
with changes that encourage people, and particularly youngsters, to get
more exercise and to make healthy food choices. But he stressed that must
include changes in how city centers are planned, how food is marketed and
the sizes of portions in which it is served.
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- Ministries of transport, environment and education should
be involved in health policies, he added.
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- "It's a complex phenomenon especially from a behavioral
viewpoint," he said.
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- "If you think of smoking -- people either smoke
or they don't smoke. But everyone has to eat and what they eat, how much
and the amount of exercise they get make weight control a very complex
behavior."
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- About 1,500 doctors, nutritionists, researchers and geneticists
are attending the conference which runs to June 1.
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