According to a World Bank expert, obesity could damage economic output as severely as malnutrition in the poorest countries.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that obesity has already tripled in the last two decades and says by 2010, one in ten children and one in five adults will be obese in Europe and Central Asia, unless action is taken soon.

Dr. Meera Shekar, who is a senior nutrition specialist with the World Bank, says malnutrition shaves off 2 to 3 percent of gross domestic product in the hardest-hit countries, and obesity could cost the same.

Dr. Shekar was speaking at the World Health Organisation European Ministerial conference on counteracting obesity, which is currently taking place in Istanbul.

The aim of the conference is “to place obesity high up on the European public health and political agendas, to foster greater awareness and high-level political commitment to action and to promote international and intersectoral partnerships”.

The ministers of 48 European countries are about to agree on a European Charter on Counteracting Obesity and establishing the principles to counteract the obesity epidemic in Europe.

The Charter aims to provide political guidance to strengthen action in the WHO European Region.

Already, six percent of health costs in the WHO’s European region, which includes Central Asia, come from obesity in adults.

Shekar said in 1992 obesity cost France $12.1 billion (6.41 billion dollars) in direct costs alone, while in 2000 obese and overweight people cost the state of California $22 billion, including indirect costs.

Obesity is also expected to reduce life expectancy, which could have a knock-on effect on the economy and according to a recent UK study, men would live five years less by 2050 if current trends were not reversed.

Dr. Shekar says it is important because the problem is increasing around the world and is an increasing drain on economies, particularly developing economies.

Obesity has appeared recently in the Middle East and North Africa and is a big problem in Latin America and Dr. Shekar says as developing countries’ economies grow, the prevalence of obesity shifts to the poor from the rich.

WHO Regional Adviser Dr. Franceso Branca says this has already happened in rich countries; in France obesity is five times more prevalent among low-income groups than high earners.

Dr. Franceso Branca speaking at the same conference, said he would like to see economic incentives to encourage consumers to buy healthier food, that taxes should be considered on soft drinks, and current European farming subsidies should be re-examined.

Ahead of the conference, health and consumer organisations were calling on governments to introduce “tougher measures to combat overweight and obesity” and to recognise that policies across all government departments need to shape living environments to enable healthy lifestyles.

They are saying the promotion of healthy diets and physical activity as the priority areas where governments should take immediate action by, for example, restricting the marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt to children and establishing a simple nutrition labelling scheme on food packaging.

The Commission’s Green Paper on obesity (December 2005) states that “unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity are the leading causes of avoidable illness and premature death in Europe, and the rising prevalence of obesity across Europe is a major public health concern”.

An EU Platform for action on diet, physical activity and health was launched in March 2005 and is one of several EU initiatives to combat obesity and chronic diseases.