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 …