Five million children obese in EU

Around 22 million of the European Union's 75 million children are overweight and 5.1 million are obese, delegates told a conference that started here on Sunday.

"It's an extraordinary figure and there are 300,000 more obese children each year," Tim Lobstein of the London-based International Association for the Study of Obesity told a press briefing at the start of the four-day meeting.

He said the scientific community knows little about preventing child obesity but added: "we may have focused too much on the child and not enough on the environment."
One study to be presented at the conference, which will bring together some 2,500 European obesity specialists, found that a programme developed by Paul Sacher of the University College London led to significant improvements in overweight and obese children over a period of one year.

Sacher developed the nine-week multi-disciplinary programme, combining exercise, nutrition and empowerment, to fight excess weight and obesity, which affects one in three children in the United Kingdom.

Scientists also said that a lack of specialisation among doctors made it more difficult to treat obese children in Europe.