The average height of five-year-olds is falling, obesity levels have increased by almost a third and the number of young people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has risen by more than a fifth, the report by the Food Foundation said.
Aggressive marketing of cheap ultra-processed food, diets lacking essential nutrition and high levels of poverty and deprivation are driving the "significant decline" in children's health, researchers found.
Failure to reverse the alarming trend would result in a generation burdened throughout their lives by diet-related illnesses and the mental health impact of living with disease - followed by an early death, the report concluded.
Health experts, politicians and food campaigners warned that without immediate action to reverse the damage, the NHS would be overwhelmed and the economy weakened for decades with much of the population too sick to work.
"The decline in children's health shown clearly in this report is a shocking and deeply sad result of the failures of the food system in the UK," said Henry Dimbleby, the former government food tsar appointed by Boris Johnson and author of the National Food Strategy.
"We need the next government to take decisive action to make healthy and sustainable, food affordable, stem the constant flow of junk food and to realise that investing in children's health is an investment in the future of the country."
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Denne historien er fra June 19, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian.
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