At least three in four of UK men and women will be overweight within 10-15 years, according to health professionals who have accused the government of failing to tackle the problem.

In 1980 just six percent of men and eight per cent of women were overweight. By the mid-1990s this figure had doubled. Now, 65.5 per cent of men and 55.2 per cent of women are overweight or obese – and this number is escalating.

An EU summit on obesity on September 12 said obesity is more of a threat than smoking now. With the International Obesity Taskforce calling for a ban on advertising targeting children with junk food and sweets, and a stop to soft drink vending machines in schools.

The Taskforce's chairman, Philip James, said: 'Officials are pretty terrified around the whole of Europe about how to confront some of these huge vested interests.

'The fast food and soft drink industries have enormous vested interests which we need to confront. If we don't, the epidemic of childhood obesity is going to rip through Europe so fast – with Britain being in the worst category – that we will have clinics of diabetic children of 13, where the evidence is clear that they will have major problems of blindness by the time they get into their 30s.'