The fat problem

It’s official: Britain is now the fattest country in Europe, with 23% of adults classified as obese, compared with 13.1% in Spain, 9.4% in France, and 8.5% in Italy. The proportion of obese children has grown from 9.9% in 1999 to 14.3% in 2004. For that, the food industry often blames the decline in physical activity. It is true that there have been substantial drops in the number of children who take part in sport, or walk to school. But according to a new study, taking more exercise on its own does not stop children from gaining weight. Researchers from the University of Glasgow recruited 545 four-year-olds from 36 nursery schools. Half the schools introduced three extra half-hour sessions of physical play, and sent information packs to parents encouraging them to involve their children in more exercise and less TV. Meanwhile, the other schools did no extra activity, and gave no advice to parents. When the children were weighed and measured six months and a year later, the researchers found that although the children who had taken more exercise had better movement skills, their body mass index was the same as for the children who had taken no extra exercise. The outcome suggests that there is no magic bullet for obesity; tackling Britain’s expanding waistlines will require people to modify their behaviour in several ways – including, in particular, their diets.