a country that has a big amount of overweight children is an obesity timebomb

A report just released by the Scottish Public Health Observatory contains the startling information that Scotland is now the second most obese nation in the world, second just to the US! At Ukmedix News we have always been aware of the big obesity problem that Scotland had, but we had no idea that it had got so bad in recent years.

Hospitals in Scotland are being overrun with obesity related illnesses according to the report and the financial figures show that six years ago the National Health Service in Scotland had to spend an extra £171 million to deal with this problem. They said that the figures for subsequent years were not yet available but it was highly probable that the figure would dramatically increase.

The report said that obese men and women are eighteen percent more likely to need hospital treatment when compared to those people of normal weight. Other  statistics published by the report showed that women are thirteen times more probable to end up with type two diabetes when compared to women who were not overweight, they were also 4 times more probable to experience high blood pressure and also around three times more likely to end up with colon cancer.

The most worrying thing about the obesity problem in Scotland is that the number of children who are suffering from weight problems has dramatically increased too. From the experience in America and in other nations it is known that children who reach their teenage years overweight or obese are much more probable to stay that way for the rest of their lives. So a country that has a vast amount of overweight children is really just an obesity time bomb.

The Scottish Executive say that they are taking important steps to get children to eat more healthily and to lose weight but critics say that too little is being implemented too late and that none of the measures and initiatives started over the last few years have had any impact in reducing the upward trend in obesity.