WHO warns Britain of rising obesity

The World Health Organization (WHO) has drawn attention to obesity that it says will be responsible for a predicted rise in diabetes-related deaths in Britain.

Such an increase would mean diabetes killing an extra 8,000 people a year in Britain, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on Wednesday.

A WHO report says deaths from the diabetes will rise by 25 percent over the next ten years around the world. In Britain alone, 84 percent of deaths this year - 488,000 - will be from chronic diseases.

In Britain, the number of overweight children aged between two and ten rose from 23 percent to 28 percent in the eight years to 2003. Across the world, according to the WHO, about 22 million children aged under five years were overweight.

The WHO says greater efforts to prevent illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer could save the lives of 36 million people around the world.

The WHO has set a new global goal to reduce the projected trend of chronic disease death rates by 2 percent each year until 2015.

Source: Xinhua