Big Plans for Losing Weight

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VOICE ONE:

Low-carbohydrate diets or not, more people than ever weigh toomuch. The World Health Organization says this is a serious problem.It says the opposite problem, hunger, affects about eight-hundred-fifty-million people. But more than one-thousand-million are overweight. And that just counts adults. At least three-hundred-million adults are obese, severely overweight.

Health ministers around the world now have a plan called the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. They approved it in late May at the meeting of the World Health Assembly inGeneva.

VOICE TWO:

The plan urges people to eat less saturated fats and trans fatty acids. Food products often list trans fats under the name "partially hydrogenated" oil. The plan also urges people to eat less salt and sugar, and more fruits and vegetables. It calls for more physical activity. And it suggests that governments restrict food advertising, especially messages aimed at children.

The plan took two years to develop. The sugar industry and several sugar-producing nations had objected to earlier proposals.They wanted to remove any discussion about limits on sugar. Some sugar producing nations feared that their farmers would be hurt by the new strategy.

VOICE ONE:

The director general of the W.H.O., Lee Jong-wook, praised the strategy as a major success in public health policy. He said it will provide countries with a powerful tool to fight diseases caused by obesity.

Health officials say poor diet and lack of exercise are among the leading causes of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. They say these kinds of diseases now cause about sixty percent of deaths worldwide.

In the United States, the government estimates that one in three adults is obese. But health officials warn that the problem is spreading in developing nations as they gain more wealth.

And the problem is not just among adults. A group called the International Obesity Task Force estimates that one in ten children worldwide is overweight or obese.

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