One of the key issues behind this is the High Fructose Corn Syrup used in most fizzy drinks. The quantity used is such that we are effectively stuffing ourselves with kilos of maize (otherwise used as cattle feed) like steers on a beef-lot in the Mid-West.
HFCS is also known to cause a faster 'sugar rush' high than ordinary sugars. When this is then followed by a blood sugar crash it leads straight to hunger pangs.
A dietary double-whammy that lies behind the fast food & soft drink industry's role in this problem...

CG, Hong Kong,

I recall a dinner party where an English woman asked a French woman how it was that French women ate heartilly and ate all the wrong things but still kept their figures. It's quite simple, she said, the French don't eat between meals.

James, London, England

Hmmm..I've no doubt life was wonderful in the 'old days' when the typical British diet was a model of balanced nutrition and portion sizes were tiny thanks to good old rationing. I expect women were more fulfilled too when they stayed at home and got regular exercise making beds and scrubbing floors. If only we could go back in time....

Cat, Manchester,

Fat children get bullied .... if obesity becomes as common as we're told, the odd balls - the thin - will be the victims.

neil, waterford, ireland

Another radical idea not mentioned in the article would be to have these parents who come home to face laundry, cleaning, etc. to begin delegating much of this work to children as they grow old enough to do it. Easier said than done, I know, but it would help to provide activity and solve some practical issues.

It would also teach children early lessons in personal responsibility, the consequences of one's actions, deferral of gratification, and other habits of mature thinking. Developing such habits in childhood and early adolescence, rather than in one's thirties or never, as is normally the case, would help to reduce obesity and many other problems in society.

D.L. Anderson, Crossett, AR/U.S.A.

If mothers were doing what they've done for thousands of years and were at home during the day being mothers instead of giving the best hours of their lives to an employer, there would be healthier food at home, a less stressed out family, and fewer fat people.

Alex G., Detroit, USA

Another useless report; if you eat more, do very little exercise you get fat. And blame it on working parents. When I was young we organised our games ourselves,( there was quite a few last latch key kids) they were
plenty of areas to play on without supervision.
But due to Governments ,these open spaces where children can play in safety near their house are being lost. Where I live there are some green spaces near the houses, but soon as someone plays football they would be told off.

A Walton, Leicester, England

Rose, I cant see where you get your comment from, no one has said that it is the mothers responsibility to look after the child, it is both parents responsibility, after all, isn't that what being a parent it all about, caring and looking after your children, If you dont want to look after the children, then dont have them. Get the other half doing the laundry and cleaning.

Mads, Yorkshire, UK

It's all very well for the government to go on about regulating food at home, but look around at what happens when families have to eat while travelling. Our airports, train stations, trains, motorway service stations are full of fast food places and almost without exception not a healthy (and I mean really healthy not spoof healthy salads from fast food operators) cafe / restaurant option in sight.

And since everyone travels more often and sits in the car or train or airport for longer peiods because of congestion, technical problems on trains or overcrowded airports (thanks to the complete lack of infrastructure planning on the giovernment's part) they're more liklely to sit around and eat more unhealthy food out of boredom.

Why doesn't the government stop wasting time on surveys that prove the obvious and get on with the major issues? Can we have a Britain that works instead of being clogged up? Then maybe everyone would be healthier and fitter.

Peter Raymant, Falmouth,

i pick my grandchildren up from school daily,not a fat child in sight. fat parents yes! the eldest plays for an under nines football team and the number of teams from 6--14 is amazing.
girls now have teams and the number is growing rapidly.
it is not difficult to change things. who would have said 20 years ago that smoking would be illegal and cigs £5 a packet.
in tens years all adverts on t.v. will just be for healthy food and the garbage american food outlets will be gone in their present form.
am i dreaming??

rod smith, manchester, england

Stop beating about the bush, it's and always has been an issue of bad parenting. Blaming big business for taking advantage of stupid people (despite having ridiculously clear labeling) is once again shifting the blame. How convenient, as usual.

Richard Armstrong, Newcastle,

Yes please! Let's have some more regulation, strictures and guidelines. They've worked so well in every other sphere of public life.

Here's a radical idea - while the kids are in the care of the State (i.e. when they're in school) ensure that physical education is mandatory - at least one hour a week. After that, butt out.

The only reason that this is even an issue is that because of the NHS we are all having to foot the bill. A truly radical solution would be to make everyone responsible for their own health by making them alone pay for their treatment. That would be a *far* more cost effective solution - and put people back in charge of their own lives. At what point did the State become the guardian of our health and why do so many people think that's desirable?

Paul Carpenter, Leeds, UK

we have a bunch of fat people, telling the fat people how to stop their children being so fat?

P S Simon, London,

"And his mother, exhausted and juggling, is unlikely to return from a hard day’s work to face the laundry, the cleaning, the after-school reading and next day’s lunchboxes and still relish the prospect of drumming up a fresh, healthy meal for the evening."

And what about his father? This article assumes that only the mother has a duty of care to her offspring. Or has the situation become so bad now, that it is automatically assumed that anyone with children is a sinlge mother?

Come on, anyone can cook a decent home-made meal in under an hour if they really want to. Baked potatoes, poached fish, vegetable stew, minestrone soup are just some examples of simple home-cooked meals that aren't expensive either. There are ample cookbooks on the market with similar recipes.

If parents are lazy, then it's no surprise their children are fat. More importantly, it's no bother to cook if BOTH parents are involved and cook together. Lazy fathers beget lazy children and are a bad example.

MB, Edinburgh,

Simple dual solution:

Schools: Do not serve up trashy food. Use meat/fish/veg. If there are pizza and chips with grated cheese on the menu, no child can be expected to choose the former.

Parents: Make your children walk to school.

Jane O'Mahoney, Launceston, England

Nice article. The comment about pop below is a good point; but healthy meals are probably the real answer. Maybe one day we will realise as a society, that working women are a great mistake; that their real place is in the home, after all. Even Hitler realised that one, German women were encouraged to stay home and look after the family; where have we gone wrong?

H. Grattan, Johannesburg, South Africa

I sometimes wonder where most of us keep our brains! It shouldn't take an awful lot of working out how to be healthy and bring up kids in the right way (manners included). Shame on us having to rely on all these useful 'guides' in life to work it out. Maybe our brains are all too full of hydrogenated vegetable oil! It makes our wildlife look like a far superior species - you don't see squirrels playing PSP's over a fatburger at Macdonalds. Who has the better life - I bet many of you still can't work it out!

Billy Bop, london,

Oh Alice such a good article and subject but your solution is naive. 'Guidelines' or 'Voluntary Arrangements' for businesses will never work. The fast/junk food industry should be legislated against to provide sound and nourishing food. Supermarkets should be banned from selling sweets and chocolates at the checkouts. The best treatment for obesity is exercise at whatever age you are. When we stop wrapping our children in cotton wool and allow them to do compulsory exercises at school and go on adventure training then much of our obesity will disappear. Families could of course ban computers for two hours after school until their children have exercised sufficiently!!

R. Allely, Cardiff, Wales

Our 13 year old daughter was knocked off her bike and run over, cycling to school on Friday. It is a miracle that she was not hurt even more seriously than she is. Parents will continue to take their children to school by car unless vulnerable cyclists are safely separated from motor vehicles.

Susan Gorton, Boston, UK

Now smoking while walking in the street has essentially been banned, looks like eating while walking has taken its place. What a bunch of low-lifes.

Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Nagano

Brilliant Alice!
But where will you find enough people to agree with you to make a difference, and to nurture our children properly?
Why do people over eat? Why do people smoke? Why do people binge drink?
Many answers I suspect, but the government and others think that a "don't do it" policy will clear the way for healthcare savings. This is far too simplistic and absurd.
You wrote an excellent article.

Mrs Elizabeth Simpson, Walberswick, Suffolk

Tubby or not tubby: get ready for action
Our children will get slimmer if we slow Britain down
Alice. Just now, I finished watching the DVD,"Super Size me" that talks of the fast foods and the consequences of the fats that the foods contain. The problem is the parents ought to take care of what they etc at home and this practice will go a longer faster rather then stopping the pocket money or spanking the children
I thank you
Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania

Alice Miles, you forgot to mention that the schools have almost all sold off their playing fields. If the schools had the facilities to let the children exercise it wouldn't matter that they were at school for 8 hours a day.

Rowan, Oxford,

Agree with Maggie Snook. No one these days seems able to go for five minutes without putting something in their mouth and every kid I see in a push chair (including those who should quite clearly be walking) is stuffing a biscuit or sandwich into a pudgy face. Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Emma, London, UK

Rose, Oxford and Doug George people like you certainly do NOT help!
Soyab, California

soyab , folsom, CA USA

I wrote a letter to my local paper during the summer commenting on the amount of people who eat on the hoof whilst out shopping, in the high street. This was in response to ahuge amount of dialogue in the local papers to desperate local councils trying to control vermin and litter problems.
I suggested that people worked up an appetite, and ate their meals at home at their dining tables. This was regarded as a very snooty attitude!! Now in another direction, you only have to see the romanticising of food , set to gooey music, and M&S and Sainsburys really do lay it on, and just looking at the racked up lazy foods all stores sell, kids are not being given a chance in the preparation and cooking imagination that are available as delicious raw local ingredients that are produced locally, and the fun in assembling a family meal!! Some children are the human version of force fed geese !!! And how they squeal when they are hungry!!!!!!!

maggie snook, weymouth, Dorset UK

Seeing as we can take for granted that for there will always be some obese people, aren't we condemning those who are to even more bullying at the hands of the new trim and toned generation? At least at school all the fat kids could hang out together, what's going to happen when there is only one fat boy in the class? - in fact, I don't remember any bullying going on at all. One word to any of them and you were turned into a human breadstick and dunk-a-liciously dipped into premature oblivion.

Gerard Elewis, London, UK

Why is it only the mother's responsibility to look after the child? Not to mention doing the laundry, cleaning, etc?

Rose , Oxford,

When will the government AND the media stay out of everyone's lives and stop telling us what we should and shouldn't do.

Doug George, Antibes, France

Regulating how businesses market and sell their products will produce negligible results. Here is the United States, many if not all foods targeted towards children were mandated to change their advertising. It has not slowed the increase in childhood obesity. The root of the problem, like many other problems in society stems from the family. Both parents invest more time towards their careers than the well being of their children.

Patrick, Chicago, USA

This doesn't go nearly far enough. As well as targeting food companies, the government should enlist pupils as their eyes and ears on the family dining table.

Children should be rewarded with points and vouchers for video games for informing on parents who allow them to eat an unhealthy diet, and then the children should be taken into care.

Children as informers may sound extreme, but golly, isn't this an important problem that Ms Miles has uncovered?

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/US

Obesity is a chronic condition.

The cause can seem small: 250ml glass of pop or a small chocolate bar; but the impact of these every day for years is startling.

The rise in obesity has occurred in the same period as a huge increase in the prevalence and literally the size of polythene balloon bottles. These have enabled the price of fizzy drinks to crash and consumption to soar.

When I grew up I was told to drink water when thirsty. Pop was a rare treat (and we had to take the bottles back)

Richard Boyce, HAYWARDS HEATH, Sussex