Obesity is a serious and often life-threatening condition that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the UK and poses unique challenges for our country’s health services.

It is acknowledged as one of the most important public health problems in developed countries and is officially recognised as an emerging epidemic across the world. After smoking, obesity is the second most common cause of preventable death. The World Health Organisation predicts that by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. In the European Union, more than 70,000 of the 3.5 million new cases of cancer each year are attributable to being overweight or obesity, an alarming consequence that the public doesn't often link with becoming obese (1).

The United Kingdom has the highest prevalence of obesity in Western European (2). Currently almost a quarter of men and women are classified as obese, while over 40 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women are overweight (3). The prevalence of obesity has been on the increase over the last twenty years and continues to soar. If current trends continue, it has been estimated that almost 13 million British adults will be obese by the year 2010 (4).

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References

1 – McMillan DC, Sattaar N, Lean M, McArcle CS, Obesity and Cancer, ABC of Obesity, BMJ 2006;303:1109-1111
2 – OECD Fact book, 2006, Table 8.
3 – Health Survey for England 2003, Table 6.10.
4 – Zaninotto P, Wardle H, Stamatakis E, Mindell J and Head J, Forecasting Obesity to 2010 Prepared for the Department of Health, Revised July 2006