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Most people obese by 2050, experts warn
Public health minister Dawn Primarolo has said the government will take action to tackle obesity after experts warned that a majority of Britons would be overweight by 2050.
A government-commissioned report warned on Wednesday that if weight gain continued at current trends, 60 per cent of men, 50 per cent of women and a quarter of children would be clinically obese in just over 40 years.
The government's Foresight think tank said that just 10 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women would be a "healthy" weight by this time.
And, calling for a long-term plan similar to tackling climate change or smoking, the researchers predicted that the health problems associated with weight gain would cost more than £45bn per year.
Public health minister Dawn Primarolo said: "Unfortunately there are no simple answers. It's on the scale of the debate that we've had in our society about smoking.
"Government can lead the way, but it cannot solve the problem."
Primarolo said the Department of Health would "seriously" consider all of the proposals" but would not comment on food taxes and advertising.
She added: "As ministers what we have to balance is encouraging people to engage with the information without making it look as if we're being dictatorial and instructing them,'' she added.
"The most important thing is there has to be public consent and understanding of the issues you're trying to challenge."
The minister said there was a "long-term drive for action on obesity," with the initial focus on bringing the levels of overweight children down to those seen seven years ago.
Sir David King, the head of the Foresight programme the government's chief scientific adviser, said weight gain occurred from living normally.
"Foresight has for the first time drawn together complex evidence to show that we must fight the notion that the current obesity epidemic arises from individual over-indulgence or laziness alone, he said.
"Personal responsibility is important, but our study shows the problem is much more complicated. It is a wake-up call for the nation, showing that only change across many elements of our society
will help us tackle obesity."
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