Britain’s obesity epidemic is so out of control health chiefs will consider ranking food addiction with drug and alcohol misuse. Experts say cheap, easily available, ultra-processed, fast food is to blame for a litany of killer conditions that are making the UK one of the sickest nations in the world.
As many as 10 million Britons are now feared to be dependent on junk food and continue to gorge despite knowing it causes harm.
Authorities, led by UK charity Public Health Collaboration, are set to ask the World Health Organisation (WHO) to make it a substance use disorder – like cocaine, opioids and nicotine.
Dr Jen Unwin, a former addict who is now a chartered clinical and health psychologist, said: “We are sleepwalking into a public health disaster.
“Although 20 percent of adults meet the criteria for food addiction, it is not a recognised clinical diagnosis.
“Diets high in sugar and ultra-processed foods lead not just to obesity but to mental health problems, chronic illnesses and shortened life spans. Year by year we see these conditions worsening and putting unsustainable pressure on the NHS.”
Globally 13 per cent of adults are obese and 39 percent overweight. One in five children is overweight. In Britain, the proportion of adults who are overweight or obese is up from 53 percent in 1993 to 64 percent and the proportion who are obese from 15 percent to 28 percent.
Food addiction was first described in 1956 at a time when restaurants became popular and post-war rationing had ended.
Seventy years on, concerns have spiralled into an epidemic. Obesity costs the NHS £58billion a year – a bill set to rise to more than £9.7billion each year by 2050.
Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases, costing the NHS more than £1million an hour.
And one in 20 cancer cases is caused by excess weight. Karol Sikora, former WHO cancer chief, said: “Walk down any high street in Britain and the obesity epidemic is staring you in the face – it simply wasn’t like that even 20 years ago.”
Yet the WHO does not yet classify food addiction as harmful.
Tam Fry, the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “Ever since 1992, when the Government launched the first public health policy, each successive government has fuelled the nation’s food addiction by failing to take on an industry which laces its products with enticing fat, sugar and salt.”
