BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhuanet) — Britain’s health secretary didn’t blame his countrymen’s eating habits for a new government report that warns most of the nation’s citizens could be obese by 2050, instead he said it was “a consequence of abundance, convenience and underlying biology.” ”As this report starkly demonstrates, people in the U.K. are not more gluttonous than previous generations and individual action alone will not be sufficient,” Alan Johnson said Wednesday in a speech to Parliament.
The obesity analysis by the Foresight program, operated by the Office for Science, concludes that excess weight has become the norm and described Britain as an “obesogenic” society.
Obesity costs Britain the equivalent of 90 million U.S. dollars a year. Obese people have a greater risk for life-threatening conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The number of overweight and obese people has tripled in the last 25 years. One in four adults are now obese, according to the most recent Health Study for England. By comparison, about one-third of adults in the United States are obese; two-thirds are overweight.
The Foresight report projects that by 2050, 60 percent of British men, 50 percent of women and a quarter of children and young people will be obese unless drastic action is taken.
The study’s authors, who based their findings on research from 250 experts over two years, said there was scant proof that current anti-obesity policies worked. The government pledged to draw up new plans to combat bulging waistlines.
