Physical Wellness

Obesity Could Lead To 700,000 New Cancer Cases In U.K. In Two Decades

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Jan 14, 2016 11:12 AM EST

Obesity has always been bad news, but there is worse from a report released by Cancer Research U.K. and the U.K. Health Forum, titled "Tipping the Scales: Why Preventing Obesity Makes Economic Sense,"

It says that obesity could "result in 700,000 new cases of cancer - plus millions of cases of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke - over the next 20 years."

They will cost the NHS £2.5 billion apart from the charges released by the state to fight the disease.

It is important to reduce the obesity cases by just 1 percent every year. That would help to prevent 64,000 cancer cases and save the NHS up to £300 million, says the report.

It also called for a national strategy to bring it down. It could make businesses cut down the sugar, calorie and fat content in food and impose a "watershed ban" on TV commercials for sugar, fat and salt products, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. The government is recommended to impose a tax of 20p per liter for sugary beverages too.

"Obesity will be a huge burden to society and the NHS in the near future. We must act now to combat this threat and we need the government to restrict the marketing of sugary food to children," Alison Cox, director of cancer prevention at Cancer Research U.K., said in a press release.

Moreover, children are vulnerable to ads, and should be protected from unhealthy promotions, it said

"We need to attack the obesity problem on many fronts and we must act now. Otherwise, our children will pay the price and the next generation will have poorer health, face more disease and die earlier," said Cox.

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