In a recent study in the US, researchers have found that the number of people classed as ‘Obese’ now out numbers those classed as ‘over weight’.

In this worrying international trend, the combination of decreased physical activity and an increased reliance of convenience food have been named as contributing factors. With today’s modern and busy lifestyle, people are under more time constraints and don’t take the time to prepare a more nutritious food base

Following the publishing of these results, there have been increased calls in NZ for a sugar tax to be imposed on food supply chains that supply high sugar foods to the market.

Amongst industrialised nations, France and Japan had the lowest increases in obesity, with researchers citing less of a departure from cultural eating habits.

In 1975 the number of people classed as ‘obese’ was 105 million worldwide, while last year that number was 640 million people, an increase of 510%, while it is predicted that by 2025, 1 in 5 people will be classed as ‘obese’.

There are a lot of scary looking numbers in this article, the scariest idea for me from a personal point of view is the pre-disposition of these kinds of health habits to children. Choices that parents make for their children on a daily basis can create the idea in the heads of kids that those habits are just a normal part of life, when in reality they shouldn’t be. We wouldn’t go around telling our kids that global warming isn’t real and that caring for the planet doesn’t matter, because we will leave the planet to them and we want to leave it in the best shape possible. So why then do we not do the same when it comes to our kids nutrition?

Over the next few weeks I will be posting about nutrition, from calories to macro-nutrients, to portion sizes, timing of meals through the day and a whole bunch of other hints and tips so that you can increase you knowledge and help fight the obesity epidemic that currently threatens the health of our population at large.