‘Weight-loss ops for teens need to rise 100-fold’

CHILDREN must undergo weight-loss surgery on an unprecedented scale to prevent an “obesity apocalypse”, Britain’s leading child doctor has warned today.

Prof Russell Viner said obesity and mental ill-health were the “great epidemics” threatening Britain, as he called for sweeping changes to “rescue” children from bleak futures.

In his first interview since being appointed president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Prof Viner urged ministers to introduce a ban on junkfood advertisements before the watershed. He also called for the provision of weightloss surgery to teenagers to rise 100-fold, saying it would save those cases locked in a “vicious cycle”.

Theresa May is understood to be drawing up plans for a “second chapter” to the Government’s childhood obesity plan, published in 2016, which is considering such proposals, despite opposition from food and drinks manufacturers.

Prof Viner called for an expansion in NHS provision of weight-loss surgery for teenagers; a ban on advertisements for unhealthy foods before the 9pm watershed; and Ofsted inspections to rate schools on their contribution to children’s health.

He also said the college would produce guidance for parents, suggesting limits on computer and smartphone time, to protect children’s physical and mental health.

Prof Viner said it was up to government to make many changes that would alter the habits of young people, and it was wrong to blame Britain’s obesity epidemic on a loss of “self-control”.

One in three children is overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school, along with three in four adults.

Prof Viner told The Daily Telegraph: “There are two great epidemics affecting children and young people; obesity and mental health problems, and in some ways they are linked.

“In a sense, they are new horsemen of the apocalypse. We used to have famine, pestilence and so forth. Famine we’ve largely conquered and now we have the opposite problem – that of feast.”

His own research suggests that around 90,000 children between the ages of 13 and 17 are so overweight they would be eligible for weightloss surgery such as stomach stapling or gastric bands. Only around 10 to 15 operations on this age group occur in the NHS each year – a number that should be expanded 100-fold, he said.

“We have an operation that is incredibly effective and safe and that can rescue some young people who are absolutely trapped in those vicious cycles and no amount of willpower can get them out of it because they have set up a system where their body will continually fight them,” he said.

Children become obese very slowly, says Professor Russell Viner, the new President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

“We have these images of parents just taking their kids to Mcdonald’s, parents stuffing their children’s faces. It’s grossly unfair,” he says.

The paediatrician spent 15 years working in University College London Hospital’s adolescent medicine service, specialising in diabetes and obesity. He believes the odds are firmly stacked against families who are trying to bring up children healthily, in a world where huge portions and processed, calorie-dense foods are pushed at every turn.

One in three children in England is overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. And three quarters of millennials are forecast to reach this point by middle age.

Asked about the drivers of obesity, Prof Viner says individuals are relatively powerless, with heavy advertising, availability and low pricing of unhealthy foods fuelling Britain’s ever-expanding waistlines. “It’s 90 per cent about the environment, much less about individual change,” he says.

“This environment is much too powerful for an ordinary mother from a relatively poor background who hasn’t had a huge amount of education. She will have aspirations for her children to be healthy – and she may have some wrong beliefs – but this environment is much more powerful than she is.”

The belief that obesity is only a problem of those living on fast food means many parents are slow to see the weight creeping on to their growing children, he suggests.

“This is about the really slow accumulation of very small amounts of body fat – it can be an extra 25 or 50 calories a day, an extra spoonful of butter,” he says.

The college is among more than 40 members of the Obesity Health Alliance – a coalition of royal colleges and charities – that are calling on the Government to introduce stringent controls on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods to children.

In their sights is peak-time Saturday viewing – the prized “X Factor” advertising slots – which they want to see cleared of all ads for junk food.

The college also wants to see Ofsted inspecting schools for their record on health, so that those with healthy food, good access to help with mental health, and high provision of fitness activities are scored more highly. Prof Viner says the NHS could do more to force parents to face up to the issue.

“We know that GPS and paediatricians see a lot of obese children. Most are not trained in how to deal with obese children, and how to have difficult conversations,” he says.

Meanwhile, NHS statistics show soaring levels of anxiety, depression and self harm among Britain’s youth, with one in four young women recording symptoms which could be classed as mental health problems.

Many people, including Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, have particular concerns about the pressures posed by a digital world. Later this year, the Royal College will publish its first recommended limits, suggesting children should not spend more than one or two hours a day on smartphones and computers.

However, Prof Viner has no truck with those who say it has never been more miserable to be a child.

“I don’t believe in this toxic childhood idea,” he says, firmly. “There is much less violence, there is less bullying – bullying is still a problem, but there is less of it, and less tolerance of bullying in schools, there is less homophobia.

“And look at their health overall. They are much less likely to be killed on the road, to die of meningitis, we can fix their hearing problems.

“Put it this way; they are never going to get polio.”