Millennials on course to become most overweight generation

UK millennials are set to become the most overweight generation since records bega, new figures reveal.
More than seven in 10 millennials, generally defined as people born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, will be obese by the time they reach middle age, according to statistics from Cancer Research UK.
Obesity and being overweight is closely linked to serious health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. But eating a healthy diet low in carbohydrate and high in healthy fat, which is recommended in our Low Carb Program, can help with weight loss and lowering the risk of future complications.
Obesity is also strongly associated with 13 different types of cancer, although only 15% of people in the UK are aware of this. It is because of this that charity Cancer Research UK has released the data in a bid to show the public that obesity can seriously affect the body just as much as smoking can.
Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK’s director of prevention, said: “Being overweight is the UK’s biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking, but most people don’t know about this substantial risk. If more people become aware of the link it may help spare not just millennials, but all generations from cancer.”
The prevalence of obesity has been on the rise rapidly with numbers increasing from 15 per cent in 1993 to 27 per cent in 2015.
This week figures from Diabetes UK showed that the number of people with diabetes has more than doubled in the UK within the last 20 years.
Professor Linda Bauld, Cancer Research UK’s prevention expert, said: “Research shows that our evolving environment has a vital role to play in the obesity crisis. Clever marketing tactics by the food industry and greater access to unhealthy food are all likely to have contributed to the rise in obesity rates.”
Editor’s note: There’s an argument that because millennials grew up under the low fat guidelines introduced across the UK in 1983, recommendations to eat starchy carbohydrate and avoid healthy fat might explain these figures. As our Low Carb Program has exhibited, eating real foods and avoiding processed food can help not just prevent and reduce obesity but also reduce the risk of long-term health complications.