one in three 11 year olds is still overweight or obese   but an expert has warned that the country’s fat youngsters are now ‘getting fatter’ britain now has 140,000 ‘super fat’ children who will need gastric bands as adults if they do not slim down, according to a leading expert the number of seriously overweight children has soared in recent years as ministers have failed to tackle the problem, said professor paul gately official statistics suggest childhood obesity rates have plateaued in recent years – although one in three 11 year olds is still overweight or obese but prof gately, who treats obese patients, said the figures disguised the fact that the country’s fat youngsters were now ‘getting fatter’ speaking at an event to discuss whether people were too worried about childhood obesity, he said the problem was ‘much worse’ than many feared overall rates had stabilised, but only because middle class families had started heeding advice to eat healthily and take more exercise, he said he added: ‘unfortunately, those children who are already obese are getting fatter so more deprived communities are getting more obese’ he continued: ‘we have 140,000 children in the uk who are so obese that if they were adults they would be immediately eligible for surgery’ society had to ‘think very carefully about that’, he told a meeting at the policy exchange think tank in london, because ‘obese children tend to become obese adults’ under recently published guidelines, adults should be considered for weight loss surgery if they have a body mass index (bmi) of 30 or more and ‘very poorly controlled’ type 2 diabetes a bmi of 30 is equivalent to a 5ft 6in woman weighing 13st 9lb, or a 5ft 11in man of 15st 6lb any patient with type 2 diabetes and a bmi over 35 should also be considered for weight reduction surgery, according to the national institute for health and care excellence britain now has 140,000 ‘super fat’ children who will need gastric bands as adults if they do not slim down  teenagers rarely have fat loss surgery, with only 60 such operations taking place last year however, as the mail on sunday revealed last month, patients are getting younger, with a 12 year old boy recently going under the knife prof gately, an exercise and obesity specialist at leeds metropolitan university, believes successive governments squandered billions on scattergun attempts to protect all children from obesity – when only some were actually ‘at risk’ arguing many obese people were victims of circumstance, he claimed the current government’s policy of emphasising ‘personal responsibility’ over weight led to people feeling blamed, which was counterproductive rofessor paul gately (pictured) says the number of seriously overweight children has soared in recent years as ministers have failed to tackle the problem  and he accused local councils of spending only minuscule amounts on obesity prevention or on helping those affected, even though the problems ‘dwarfed’ other public health issues that had money lavished on them, such as sexually transmitted infections tam fry, of the national obesity forum, said: ‘if we only had a real policy for preventing children from getting fat in the first place, we would not have ridiculous figures like this’ mr fry said he believed more teenagers should undergo fat loss surgery, adding that gastric bands were proven to help patients lose weight and keep it off but weight loss motivator steve miller countered: ‘why should parents expect the taxpayer to pay for their child to go on the operating table, because they have been so irresponsible as to let them get so fat?’ he added: ‘gastric bands don’t treat the underlying reasons why a child is obese, which could be caused by emotional problems or self esteem issues’ former tory health secretary andrew lansley, who also spoke at the policy exchange event, said the government’s health initiatives had helped make food healthier – cutting salt and fat levels, and reducing the nation’s intake by billions of calories a day and he said it was right to stress personal responsibility because it was important that people realised they could take action to cut their weight
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britain now has 140,000 'super fat' children who will need gastric bands . number of seriously overweight children has soared in recent years . one in three 11 year olds are classed as overweight or obese in the uk . expert has warned that fat youngsters are now 'getting fatter'