Speech on children's unhealthy eating habits

Good morning everybody, I can see I have already met some of you, but for those I have not, I am Carol Winston and I represent WHO, World Health Organization.

The main reason I am here today is to give an outline of children’s unhealthy eating habits.

We will touch on predictions regarding obesity in Britain, reasons for the present state of children’s health, why it might be difficult to change the attitudes to children’s catering, and what you can do to facilitate the improvement.

So let us start by looking at the predictions of the future. It is predicted, by the Department of Health that a third of men will be officially obese in 2010, increasing their risk of heart diseases, diabetes and forms of cancer. Concerning girls, the number of obese girls will be higher than boys.

2003

2010

Girls

16 %

22 %

Boys

17 %

19 %

Adult men

-

33 %

Adult women

-

28 %

(Showing a statistic…)

As you can see, overall, by 2010

22 percent of girls and 19 percent of boys will be obese. Ladies and gentlemen; that is for the girls an increase of 6 percent and for the boys an increase of 2 percent, since 2003!