Friday August 26 2011 Many newspapers have reported that half of
UK men could be obese by 2030 if trends continue. The Guardian
said that “governments around the world need to make immediate
and dramatic policy changes to reverse a pandemic of obesity”.
The Independent reported that by 2030 there will be 26 million
people in the UK who are obese - a rise of 73% from the current
15 million. The Daily Mail reported that women will be close
behind, “with four in ten similarly overweight” by that year.
These news stories and others are based on a series of papers in
The Lancet examining issues surrounding the current worldwide
obesity ‘pandemic’. The predictions come from one of these
studies, which looked at obesity data from the US and UK, which
have had the highest obesity levels in the world over the past
20 years. The researchers predict that if the current trend
continues, up to 48% of men and 43% of women in the UK could be
obese by 2030, adding an additional £1.9-2 billion per year in
medical costs for ob