CHILDREN as young as four in Chester are too fat and have serious health problems.
And health bosses say the city could be sitting on a ticking time bomb with a third of youngsters between 10 and 11 either clinically overweight or obese.
They fear that without drastic action a frightening 90 per cent of children in Chester and Ellesmere Port will be clinically obese within 40 years.
Shocking new figures have also revealed that one in five children of reception class age are already overweight.
Four-year-olds are complaining of back and foot pain, as well as low self esteem, depression and eating disorders and many are being treated for weight-related diabetes.
Poor diet and lack of exercise has been blamed for the shocking number of cases but the local figures are below the national average.
For pupils in year six, the final year of primary education, 17.5 per cent are obese compared with the national figure of 18.3 per cent.
The North West continues to record some of the highest levels of diet-related ill health – fuelled by easy access to processed foods, ready meals and fatty snacks.
Western Cheshire Primary Care Trust, which collated the figures, revealed it had spent about £330,000 performing a total of 36 weight-loss surgery procedures on adults last year.
The figures show that nearly 50,000 people in and around Chester are clinically obese.
According to figures obtained by local GPs since 2007, men in Chester and Ellesmere Port over the age of 45 are tipping the scales as the largest group to suffer from a weight problem.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health and can dramatically increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, as well as high blood pressure and a number of health complications such as heart disease, back pain, eating disorders and depression.
Julie Webster, director of public health, said: “We are particularly concerned for our local children and young people for the sake of their own health and because they are the parents of the future.
“Research demonstrates that the children of obese parents are at greater risk of becoming overweight or obese adults, increasing their likelihood of developing such health problems later in life.
“If we carry on as we are, 90 per cent of today’s children could be overweight or obese by 2050.
“We all need to address the rise in obesity for the sake of the future health of our children.”
As levels continue to rise the Western Cheshire Primary Care Trust has developed a series of programmes to tackle the growing problem of obesity in Chester and Ellesmere Port.
Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWaC), and groups in the voluntary and community sector have joined with the trust to introduce weight loss programmes including MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition…. Do It), a free one year weight management programme for children, and the Step by Step equivalent for adults.
The “Snack Right” project continues to focus on parents and carers of pre-school children from deprived neighbourhoods, and in 2008 Community Care Western Cheshire and the Healthy Living Network received £115,000 from the Big Lottery fund for a three-year project to promote the health and well-being of people aged 50 plus in Blacon, Lache, Newtown, Chester city centre and the canal basin.