Obesity is a global problem and needs to be viewed as an epidemic

#obesity #health #overweight #healthyfood #unhealthyfood Obesity is a global problem and needs to be viewed as an epidemic. Efforts to tackle it at the international level is extremely slow and no country has, yet, been able to reverse the trend as revealed in a recent major study and reported in news.sky.com dated 19 February 2015.
The six-part series has been published in The Lancet and it examines how different countries across the world are dealing with an increasing obesity epidemic. The focus is on a whole range of issues beginning from not only the quality of diet but also on how to influence and encourage children to eat healthier food.
The study has found that while consumption of healthy foods has improved, it has been overtaken by people going in for more unhealthy foods – a paradox. As a result, some of the wealthiest regions in the world are still stuck with the lowest quality diets.
As per estimates, 600 million people worldwide are obese, with 2.1 billion now overweight. This aspect of being overweight should be given necessary importance because is believed to be the reason for death of 2.8 million people every year.
Reports indicate that in some countries like the UK, childhood obesity numbers have levelled off, but even today, no country can claim to have reversed the obesity epidemic. Therefore, experts want a worldwide action plan that would include restrictions on how food meant for children is marketed. Moreover, they would also like to have suitable regulation of food nutritional quality and availability in schools, better labelling with nutritional values and taxes on drinks that are high in sugar.
The intentions are to increase awareness and penalize those who do not toe the line.