Signal One in four Spanish children could live with obesity by 2050

Summary

The report warns that if current trends continue, one in four Spanish children could be living with obesity by 2050. It frames this as an alarm signal requiring attention to emerging risks rather than only to progress. Obesity already affects 16 percent of adults and children, more than double the 7 percent of the late 1980s. The report attributes this to sedentary lifestyles linked to office work and screen time, and to limited nutritional information, tight budgets and cheap high-calorie food in lower-income households. Responses it proposes include policies that encourage active mobility and make healthy food more available, accessible and attractive, along with changes to schools, neighbourhoods and municipalities. Spain's health promotion and prevention strategy and its national plan to reduce childhood obesity provide a base for this.