Children Are Heading for Heart Attacks, Report Warns

May 31, 01:40 AM

Current Headlines: TODAY'S couch-potato kids are tomorrow's cardiac arrest victims, the European Commission has warned.

A diet of junk food and exercise-free television and video games has left nearly 22 million schoolchildren in Europe overweight - a figure growing by 400,000 every year.

The situation is so bad that EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has made tackling what he called Europe's "obesity epidemic" top priority for a new six-year pounds 260 million EU health programme, starting this year.

"What consumers eat is up to them - but they should be able to make informed choices and have a range of healthy options to choose from," he said.

"That is why the Commission is reviewing the options for nutrition labelling and calling on industry to advertise responsibly and reduce levels of salt, fats and sugar in food products".

The message is not new but a Commission report aims to step up co- ordinated action across 27 countries in the face of increasing concern.

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