Generation XXL

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Life is changing fast for GCC residents, and for the region's fast-food kids, it's set to be a brief ride, claims Dr Sahar Al-Dossary, a leading regional paediatrician. Thanks to climbing trends in obesity, the current generation of GCC children, the Saudi-based clinician contends, is a lost cause.

"We obviously have an epidemic, but it is also obvious it is already too late," she says bluntly. "If we can save the next generation, then it will be a success."

To the uninitiated, this statement may seem premature when the cure for childhood obesity is so blindingly simple. More physical activity and selfrestraint is advocated, implying that a gluttonous, lazy youth has shaped its own downfall. But for Al Dossary, the obesity problem is so endemic in developed societies it won't be fixed by jogging and sugar-free juice alone: "It is not simply a matter of changing the lifestyle, we are beyond that, I think the problems we have now will mostly be treated surgically."

The fats don't lie

Al Dossary isn't alone in her beliefs. The results of the largest ever UK study into obesity, released last month, concluded that obesity was an inevitable consequence of modern society. The government-funded research found that excess weight was a logical result of an "obesogenic" society, in which cheap, energy-dense foods, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife. The authors also admitted that any evidence that current anti-obesity strategies worked was "scant".

Al Dossary has recently conducted a study of the children in Al-Khobar, the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Her results show that a whopping 22% are clinically obese. Accurate statistics for paediatric obesity are notoriously difficult to come by in the region, as nations are reluctant to compete for the mantle of unhealthiest children in the Gulf. Al-Dossary's figures, however, are roughly mirrored by studies carried out in the UAE by Professor Abduelmula R Abduelkarem, chair of the clinical pharmacy department, Ajman University of Science and Technology. "Between 20 and 25% of our children are suffering from being overweight", he concurs. "Obesity is now an epidemic disease."

Perhaps the clearest sign that children are being irreparably damaged by modern lifestyles is the startlingly early appearance of the formerly ‘adult' diseases, of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis. In the space of a decade, type 2 diabetes is more than twice as prevalent as the congenital type 1, according to Al Dossary's statistics. "It used to be that 1.7 children per 1,000 had type 1 diabetes and now it is 4 per 1,000," she notes. "It was unheard of before and now we have more than double the rate of congenital diabetes. It's really shocking."

Life in the fat lane

Despite regional reticence about the extent of the problem, it is undeniable that the Gulf is facing an obesity crisis. The popularity of fast food with young people is nothing new, but nutritionists argue that it has now supplanted traditional fare as a primary food source. What used to be a guilty treat, or an occasional quick fix, is now considered an appropiate meal. Part of the problem, argues Valerie Houghton, a US trained dietician based in Abu Dhabi, is that children in the GCC are given too much opportunity to self-regulate their diet.

"Children here are given disposable income to freely spend on food outside of the home," she explains. "They are not given any guidance on what to choose, what selections are okay, and, importantly, what constitutes a meal versus a snack."

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