Obesity Said to Cause 6%
of All Deaths in England

LONDON (Reuters Health) - More government action on obesity was urged in a report released Wednesday that warns that over 30,000 deaths a year in England, or 6% of all deaths, can be attributed to excess body weight.

The National Audit Office (NAO) report says this death toll is six times higher than that from road accidents. On average, each person whose death could be attributed to obesity lost 9 years of life.

The report estimates most adults in England are now overweight, and one in five is obese. The cost to the National Health Service was at least half a billion pounds a year while the wider costs to the economy could add a further two billion pounds a year.

``Nearly two thirds of men and over half of women in England are now overweight or obese,'' said Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, an independent body that scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament.

``And the problem here is increasing faster than in most other European countries,'' he warned in a news release. ``If prevalence continues to rise at the current rate, more than one in four adults will be obese by 2010.

``This would significantly increase the incidence of associated diseases, such as coronary heart disease, and would cost the economy over 3.5 billion pounds a year by that date,'' he said.

The report shows that less than 10 million pounds a year was spent treating obesity in England in 1998 whereas 470 million pounds went on treating the consequences of obesity.

It calculates that an obese woman is nearly 13 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, four times more likely to develop high blood pressure, and three times more likely to have a heart attack than a woman within the healthy weight range.

The NAO found wide variations in the way general practitioners (GPs) manage overweight patients and uncertainty about which treatments are most effective. Only 40% of GPs attempted to identify patients at highest risk of excessive weight gain.

The report calls on the Department of Health to lead the development of a cross-government strategy to promote physical activity in sport and by walking or cycling to work. High priority should also be given to improving the nation's diet, the report's authors urge.

Reference Source 89

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