The UK currently ranks as the country with the highest level of obesity in Europe, with more than one in four (28.1%) adults obese and nearly two out of three (63.4%) overweight.
Over the next 20 years, the number of obese adults in the country is forecast to soar to 26 million people.
According to health experts, such a rise would result in more than a million extra cases of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Obesity is also no longer a condition that just affects older people, although the likelihood does increase with age, and increasing numbers of young people have been diagnosed with obesity.
Data from Public Health England suggests that nearly a third (31.2%) of children aged two to 15 years old are obese.
Links between obesity and type 2 diabetes
While the exact causes of diabetes are still not fully understood, it is known that factors up the risk of developing different types of diabetes mellitus.
For type 2 diabetes, this includes being overweight or obese (having ...
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