Obesity is now a bigger cancer risk than smoking

OBESITY is a bigger risk factor for some cancers than cigarettes - and people in Leicestershire are almost three times more likely to be overweight than smoke.

Cancer Research UK has launched a campaign to increase awareness of the link between obesity and cancer - with excess weight causing more cases of some cancers than smoking.

Applying similar analysis to local populations shows that in Leicestershire, there are about 154,000 adults who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or more).

The county has around 58,000 current smokers.

Approximately, 27,000 people in the county are both obese and smokers.

In Charnwood, the number of people who are obese is around 41,000, with 15,000 people who are smokers, with 7,000 people who are obese and smokers.

In North West Leicestershire there are about 22,000 people who are obese, with 8,000 who are smokers, and 4,000 who are obese and smokers.

Cancer Research UK’s chief executive Michelle Mitchell said: “As smoking rates fall and obesity rates rise, we can clearly see the impact on a national health crisis when the Government puts policies in place - and when it puts its head in the sand.

“Our children could be a smoke-free generation, but we’ve hit a devastating record high for childhood obesity, and now we need urgent Government intervention to end the epidemic.”

A study in 2015 found excess weight causes around 1,900 more cases of bowel cancer than smoking in the UK each year. The same pattern was true for cancer in the kidneys (1,400 more cases caused by excess weight than by smoking each year in the UK), ovaries (460) and liver (180).

Professor Linda Bauld, Cancer Research UK’s prevention expert, said: “There isn’t a silver bullet to reduce obesity, but the huge fall in smoking over the years - partly thanks to advertising and environmental bans - shows that Government-led change works.

“It was needed to tackle skyhigh smoking rates, and now the same is true for obesity.

“The world we live in doesn’t make it easy to be healthy and we need Government action to fix that, but people can also make changes themselves; small things like swapping junk food for healthier options and keeping active can all add up to help reduce cancer risk.”

Responding to the figures, BMA board of science chair, Prof Dame Parveen Kumar, said: “The severity of this problem must not be underestimated.

“As well as the pressing need to raise public awareness of the worrying link between obesity and multiple types of cancer, we need to see a reversal of the cuts to public health funding so we can prevent children and adults reaching this critical stage.

“Failure to do so will continue to cost lives.”

Cancer Research UK wants the Government to act on its ambition to halve childhood obesity rates by 2030 and introduce a 9pm watershed for junk food adverts on TV and online, alongside other measures such as restricting promotional offers on unhealthy food and drinks.

Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England said: “Although cancer survival is at a record high, this significant progress is in danger of being undone by the fastgrowing epidemic of obesity, given excess weight is linked to 13 types of cancer.

“This study is further proof that obesity is the new smoking, and the NHS can’t win the ‘battle against the bulge’ on its own; families, food businesses and government all need to play their part if we’re to avoid copying America’s damaging and costly example.”