socialmedian: No room for obesity complacency

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No room for obesity complacency | Neville Rigby

Source: guardian.co.uk Society

Nov 03, 2009

Summary

'Good' headlines about revised projections mustn't distract us from the work that needs to be done to tackle childhood obesity

On the face of it, the latest forecast that there may well be fewer overweight and obese children in 10 years' time than was previously predicted would seem to be good news.

If the calculations are correct, it is suggested that "only" about 30% of youngsters will be overweight or obese – and remarkably the government's revised target of reducing the scale of the problem to year 2000 levels by 2020 might well be achieved. That assumes no improvement in the situation over the next decade and still leaves obesity among young children at twice the level it was in 1990 – the baseline for all the calculations.

What is extremely worrying is to note how easily the projections from the National Heart Forum can be misinterpreted as evidence that the obesity rates are falling – ergo, problem solved. The rise in obesity rates may be lessening, but obesity itself is now consolidating as a hardcore problem. The last Department of Health data showed ex

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