An organisation called the International Obesity Task Force is pushing for a total ban on the advertising of unhealthy and junk food to children in order to help stop the worldwide battle against obesity. All over the world children are getting fatter and the number of those categorised as obese is on the rise too. The International Obesity Task Force said that the World Health Organisation should be the ones promoting this idea as the obesity epidemic is harming children all over the world and in the future may give them miserable lives with illness and disease.

The IOT said tha there is a proven link between the advertising of fast food and obesity levels in children and it was essential that exploitative marketing methods were kept away from children to keep them safe and healthy. The IOT said that concrete action and internation agreements on how food is marketed to children must be put in place so that many countries could start to get to grips with the problem.

It is especially important to stop childhood obesity as it has been shown that overweight and obese kids tend to have weight problems all their lives and this impacts on their quality of life. Obesity is the biggest cause of diabetes also and more and more children are suffering from the condition as well as the rarer Type 2 diabetes that is very rare in children.

Recently the WHO said that figures show that there are more obese and overweight people in the world than there are starving people showing that obesity is the world's biggest eating problem and adverts may play a big part in that. In the EU five million children are obese thousands have the rare Type 2 diabetes that is very hard to live with.

The calls to protect children from the adverts would need strict monitoring on the television, near schools and on the internet and food manufacturers and governments would need to work together to stop the growing problem.