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New research from global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, has revealed that implementing the right measures could save the NHS £760m a year and bring 20% of overweight and obese people back into a healthy weight category within five to ten years.

MGI’s research details that the UK invests less than $1bn (around £640m) a year in prevention activities such as weight-management programmes and public-health campaigns.

The cost of obesity on the UK economy is almost equal to the damages of smoking, war and terrorism. The impact on global GDP from obesity is $2.0 trillion, just short of the $2.1 trillion cost of smoking and $2.1 trillion cost of armed violence, war, and terrorism.

Speaking yesterday at Food Matters Live (19th), Kim Roberts, chief executive of Henry (Health, Exercise, Nutrition for the Really Young), said: “Once obesity is established it’s incredibly hard to reverse” placing an emphasis on prioritising prevention measures.

Whilst Ana Kristina Skrapac, spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, suggested that more needed to be done to transfer the five-a-day message into practice, as children are aware of its health benefits, but are not receiving them.

Prue Leith, former Children’s Food Trust chair called for schools to “ban lunchboxes” as the temptation to treat children with sweets is too high as well as suggesting more needs to be done to teach children how to eat healthily.

The report find that’s obesity is a global issue as more than 2.1 billion people, which is nearly 30 percent of the global population, are overweight or obese. Obesity is responsible for 5% of worldwide deaths a year.

Read the full report attached below: