Rather ironically, the best analogy I can summon to describe my appointment and role with Policy Exchange as senior research fellow on Obesity and Physical Activity is an enormous buffet made up of your favourite food. The problem would be deciding where to start and then knowing when to stop. Sadly, the obesity and inactivity pandemic heading our way is larger and more intimidating than the dream buffet.
It was while reading the October 2007 Foresight report, ‘Tackling Obesities: future choices‘, that I became acutely aware of the juggernaut heading in our direction. The paper predicted that by 2050 three in five adult men, half of all adult women and a quarter of our children under 16 could be obese. The attributable costs to the NHS would be in the region of £10bn a year; the wider costs to society almost £50bn.
Today’s children are the first generation to have lower life expectancy than their parents, as childhood obesity worldwide has nearly doubled since 1980.
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