Obesity rates in children and diabetes rates in young people rise in UK, report says

The health status of children has been a cause for concern since the beginning of the century. Obesity rates among 10 - and 11-year-olds in England have risen by 30% since 2006.

The report, A Neglected Generation: Reversing the Decline of Children's health in England, released by charity The Food Foundation on Wednesday, described the rise in the number of children struggling with weight problems as "deeply worrying".

The height of five-year-olds has fallen steadily since 2013, and the incidence of type 2 diabetes among people under 25 has risen, rising by 22% in the past five years.

Potential causes include "alarming levels of poverty and deprivation" and "the food industry's aggressive promotion of cheap junk food," the report's authors said.

They added that the recent cost of living crisis in the UK had "exacerbated" the difficulties faced by many families in putting healthy, nutritious food on the table.

Dimbleby, a former government food adviser, said in the report that the decline was "shocking and deeply sad".

He urged whichever party wins the UK general election on July 4 to "take decisive action to make healthy and sustainable food affordable and stop the escalation of junk food".

One in five children are obese by the time they leave primary school aged 10 to 11, putting them at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, research suggests.

Political leaders must "reverse the current trajectory," the report said. "Without this, a generation will bear a lifelong burden of diet-related disease and its consequences."

Those consequences will include mental and physical health problems, as well as "an overwhelmed health care system that is unable to treat patients effectively and economic inactivity that weakens the gross domestic product."