Childhood Obesity Increasing Alarmingly – Warns WHO

If you think obesity is a rising concern among the adults and the elderly then you might be wrong. A new study has found that there has been a tenfold increase in the number of obese and overweight children and adolescents worldwide in the last four decades.

The World Health Organization (WHO) experts have warned that with this trend more children will be overweight than underweight by 2022.

During the study, which is considered as the biggest epidemiological studies scientists along with the World Health Organization and Imperial College London analyzed height and weight data for 130 million people since 1975, to get their Body Mass Index or BMI.

The study reported that the rates of obesity among those aged 5-19 have increased tenfold in just over four decades, from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016.

Lead author of the report, Majid Ezzati, professor at Imperial's School of Public Health, said: "Over the past four decades, obesity rates in children and adolescents have soared globally, and continue to do so in low- and middle-income countries."

The study was recently published in the journal Lancet.

Meanwhile, also know about the major causes for obesity among children. Take a look.

Unhealthy Diet:
Intake of calorie-rich junk foods, soda and chips leads to excess weight gain and obesity among children. Hence keeping a check on the food that the children eats is important to prevent obesity.

Lack Of Physical Activities:
Children today are hooked to television, video games and mobile phones. This reduces their physical activities. So when they are not able to burn the calories, it ultimately leads to weight gain and obesity.

Genetic:
In certain cases, obesity is caused due to genetic factor. If the children are born to obese parents then there are high chances for the child to become obese. However, this can be prevented if the child takes up healthy food habit and physical exercises.

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