The future of our children

In July 2008, David Cameron had famously declared that obese people have only themselves to blame for their condition. He suggested that we often talk about people being at risk of obesity instead of people who eat too much and take too little exercise. Are social problems the consequence of the choices people make? or people are likely make choices based on the current underlying social problems? We know that junk food is readily available in poor areas significantly more than in rich parts of London and is often cheaper than healthy foods. In London nearly 23% of children entering school are overweigh or obese and given the choices of our current leader, this number will likely increase. Mr Cameron has recently blessed to cancel the free school lunches that should have been available to half a million poorer children from next term.

Shifting responsibility for public health from the state to society will also mean economic suicide. It is predicted treatment costs, lost of productivity and social costs of premature mortality will swallow third of NHS budget by 2050. That should surely wipe the enigmatic smile off Mr Cameron's face.

As concern about children's health grows along with their waistlines, a bizarre war to differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes has broke out.  Type 1 diabetes patients are lobbying for a name change to their condition because many people cannot decipher the difference between the two types of diabetes and associate both with poor eating habits and obesity. While I sympathise with people demanding accurate perception of their condition, it makes me wonder how distancing ourselves from already stigmatized group of people will impact their mental health and help reverse global preconceptions often associated with obesity?

Eating disorders and obesity are often seen as different problems, but actually share many similarities. Obesity and other weight-related disorders many overlap as girls may suffer from more than one disorder or progress from one problem, such as unhealthy dieting, to another, such as binge eating and obesity.