Published 29 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1892
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1892

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EU parliament backs 30 minutes’ exercise a day for all children to tackle obesity

Rory Watson

1 Brussels

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The European parliament has highlighted the costs of obesity to individuals and society by overwhelmingly endorsing a comprehensive strategy to tackle a problem it warns has reached epidemic proportions.

World Health Organization data show that worldwide more than a billion people are overweight and 300 million obese. In Europe, almost 22 million children are overweight, and a further 1.3 million will be so by 2010. Obesity already accounts for some 6% of health related expenditure, without counting indirect costs.

Alessandro Foglietta, the member of the European parliament who authored the report on tackling obesity, which the parliament strongly endorsed, said that priority targets should be young people, people with learning disabilities, and elderly people. "If you are obese as a child, you are likely to be obese as an adult," the Italian MEP said. "I believe that the key to protecting our children is to start in institutions that involve . . . [Full text of this article]


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