ABSTRACT
The current generation of children is more overweight and obese than any other generation before. For instance, according to US CDC, ‘Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5 % in 1980 to 19.6 % in 2008. The prevalence of obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0 % to 18.1 %’ (https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/). At a meeting in Washington DC (July 2009) Michelle Obama stated to the ‘Weight of the Nation’ meeting, ‘The trend is alarming. For the first time our youngest generation is predicted to live a shorter life span than their parents because of the growth in childhood obesity and its related diseases.’ Was this news? No, in 2005 Olshansky et al. had stated in the NEJM, ‘Unless effective population-level interventions to reduce obesity are developed, the steady rise in life expectancy observed in the modern era may soon come to an end and the youth of today may, on average, live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents.’ Also in Europe we are faced with high rates of childhood overweight and obesity. In 2003 Lobstein and Frelut published results from a pan-European study showing prevalence rates for overweight in 7–11 year olds to vary from 10–34 % depending on country, whereas for 14–17 year olds the prevalence varied from 9–22 % (Lobstein and Frelut, 2003). A recent 2010 OECD report showed that now ‘Across most EU countries, one in seven 11–15 year old children are overweight or obese’ (OECD, 2010). From our own research we know that the increase in overweight and obesity rates in adults is not linear, but exponential (Nooyens et al., 2009). It is not farfetched that the same holds true for children.
