Scotland's Children Getting Fatter Despite Health Initiatives

the Liberal Democrat Health spokesman described the problem as a time bomb

Figures released by Scottish health authorities have highlighted just how serious the obesity problem in Scotland is. According to the statistics twenty percent of all primary school pupils are classified as overweight and ten percent of children in some deprived areas of Scotland are classified as obese.

Commenting on the figures, Public Health Minister Shona Robison said that the problem was extremely severe and that firm action was being taken to ensure that schoolchildren were educated in healthy eating ways. Another initiative was to introduce free school meals for many primary school children which would be checked for their nutritional value.

Politicians from other parties claimed however that not enough was being done to help the overweight Scottish children and that the statistics were unacceptable. Ross Finnie, the Liberal Democrat Health spokesman described the problem as a “time bomb”, and that more vigorous action was called for to get children eating healthily.

The link between unhealthy eating habits and deprived communities is very apparent and people in Scotland have significantly lower life expectancy rates when compared to the United Kingdom as a whole as a result. Scotland in fact has some of the highest obesity rates in Europe and the city of Glasgow is considered to be the centre of the problem. Despite initiatives to educate Scottish people about the need to get exercise, to quit smoking and to stay away from unhealthy fried fast food there is still a lot of resistance to change.

Ms. Shona Robison explained that children born into certain communities were being condemned to a life of hardship because of their community’s unhealthy eating habits. She said that in this day and age it was “scandalous” that this was happening. At Ukmedix News we feel that it is all very well for her to preach but as she is the Minister for Public Health the buck stops with her and it’s about time that she stopped talking about what she’s going to do and actually did something which made a difference.