Fat epidemic hits toddlers

AUSTRALIA’S obesity crisis has hit pre-schoolers with one in five children aged two to four classified as overweight or obese, a major government report has revealed.

Today’s toddlers are twice as likely to be obese (9 per cent) as children of the same age in 1995 (4 per cent) and it is because our food portion sizes have grown 66 per cent.

Public health groups are calling for a tax on sugary drinks and restrictions advertising junk food to children to try to control the problem.

The situation for oldies is even worse.

An astounding eight in 10 women aged over 55 have a waist circumference that puts them at risk of major health problems, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s obesity stocktake reveals.

But it is young adults aged 18-21 who have porked up the most in recent decades.

Seventeen per cent of those born in 1994-97 were obese at 18-21, more than double the proportion of those born in 1974-77 (7 per cent) at the same age.

Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of Australians aged 18 and over are overweight or obese and men have higher overweight and obesity rates (71 per cent) than women (56 per cent), the AIHW says.

Australia has the fifth highest obesity rate in the world at 28 per cent of the population aged over 15, behind the US (38 per cent), Mexico (33 per cent), New Zealand (32 per cent), and Hungary (30 per cent).

People from lower income backgrounds and those in regional areas are more likely to be overweight and obese, the report shows.

The consequences of Australia’s growing waistlines are alarming, with the financial cost estimated at $8.3 billion a year — primarily due to lost productivity ($3.6 billion), health system costs ($2 billion or 24 per cent) and carer costs ($1.9 billion or 23 per cent).

Being overweight and obese also increases adults’ risk of cancer, heart disease, asthma, back pain, kidney disease, dementia, diabetes, gall bladder disease, gout and osteoarthritis.

Overweight and obese children are also more likely to become obese adults, and to develop chronic conditions at younger ages.