British kids face an adulthood filled with diet-related illnesses due to an increase in unhealthy lifestyle, poor diet rich in fast foods and ultra processed foods. According to the new report, babies born today will enjoy a year less good health than babies born a decade ago. The report was published by a think tank The Food Foundation this week. The organisation is now calling for an urgent action from the British Government as these illnesses are “largely preventable” and spare the kids from suffering in their entire lifetime. The study found there has been a steady increase in obesity, diabetes and malnutrition among young children. Type 2 diabetes among under 25s has increased by 22% in the past 5 years. Shorter and fatter kids According to the report, obesity among kids who are 10-11-year old has increased by 30 per cent since 2006 and kids are now shorter. The study also found that the average height of five-year-old kids has fallen year-on-year since 2013. Cheap junk food on the rise The report authors suggest there is a number of reasons for it including aggressive marketing of cheap packaged ultra processed foods, ready meals, and fast food, high levels of food insecurity caused by poverty and deprivation. This mean that children are living in an environment that makes feeding them healthily challenging or impossible. And the cost-of-living crisis has additionally increased the problem. Kids obesity high in the UK The place with the worst child obesity rate in the UK is Barking and Dagenham where over a third of 6 years old kids is classed as obese. When obesity and overweight figures are estimated together, nearly 40% (36.6%) of UK children are of an unhealthy weight. Obesity is a huge cost for the NHS. It costs around £6.5 billion a year and significantly increases the risk of developing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart diseases. Commenting on the report, Anna Taylor, executive director at The Food Foundation, said: “The health problems being suffered by the UK’s children due to poor diet are entirely preventable. “Politicians across the political spectrum must prioritise policies that give all children access to the nutrition they need to grow up healthily, as should be their right.” Chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver, commented: “Decades of government neglect has meant kids are suffering from more obesity-related illnesses, leading to average heights shrinking and living shorter lives – they’re not being given the chance to be happy, healthy people. And they deserve so much more than that. “We need to reverse this trend if we’re to have the healthiest generation of kids, and to do that we need to take a serious look at the food that fuels us. And right now, it’s not pretty. “There’s no silver bullet to fix this, which is why we need a comprehensive approach that doesn’t just tinker around the edges but revolutionises the rules and fundamentally improves the quality of food across the board. The leader who understands this and gets serious about child health will be the person who turned the tide on obesity – and won.”
