Childhood obesity rates will soar dramatically in most parts of the world by the end of the decade and raise the risk of diabetes in young people, health experts said on Monday.

By 2010 the number of overweight and obese youngsters in the European Union nations is expected to hit 26 million. An estimated 20,000 obese youngsters will have type 2 diabetes, previously a disease the only developed in adults.

Over one million children will also show signs of high blood pressure, raised cholesterol levels or early indicators for cardiovascular disease.

“The obesity estimates are very cautious, but extremely worrying,” said Dr. Tim Lobstein, of the International Obesity TaskForce (IOTF), who analyzed worldwide trends in childhood obesity.

“When we looked at the overweight it was astonishing to see that nearly half of children in both North and South America could be overweight in just four years time.”

DOUBLE THE LEVEL OF EARLIER SURVEYS

Changes in diet, a decrease in physical activity and too much time spent in front of computer or television screens have been blamed for the growing number of overweight children worldwide.

North America, Europe and part of the Western Pacific have the highest prevalence of overweight children at about 20 to 30 percent.

“It is amazing and impressive and devastating,” Professor Philip James, chairman of the IOTF, said in an interview referring to the research.

“They have put in a much fuller collection of information than we have ever seen before. They have also looked specifically to see how fast the epidemic is going and projected it forwards.”

The research reported in the new International Journal of Pediatric Obesity shows 10 percent of children in Europe, nearly double the level of earlier surveys, will be obese by 2010.

In the Middle East the figure is expected to rise to 11.5 percent while in North and South America the obesity level in children may climb to 15.2 percent.

The Asian average could triple from 1.5 to 5.3 percent. The researchers said estimates for Africa are unavailable because of insufficient data.

“The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing in almost all industrialized countries for which data are available, and in several lower-income countries,” Lobstein and his co-author Dr. Youfa Wang from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, said in the report.

The researchers, who used World Health Organization data and published research to estimate overweight and obesity prevalence levels for 2006 and 2010, said urgent action is needed to stop the rising trend.

“We can only do this if we seriously address the need to cut down the consumption of extra empty calories in high-fat and high-sugar food products, and do much more to improve children’s opportunities to be active,” Lobstein added in a statement.