Big increase in hospital admissions for obesity

The NHS Information Centre said patients going under the knife in a last-ditch effort to tackle obesity also rose by 55 per cent.

There were nearly 8,000 admissions to hospital for obesity in 2008-09, up from 5,000 12 months before in England, eight times higher than numbers a decade before.

In Yorkshire, 855 people were admitted for treatment in 2008-9 due to excessive weight – three quarters of them women – at a rate equivalent to the English average. Overall 8,000 needed hospital treatment for problems linked in some way to obesity.

Some 4,200 people in England had weight-loss surgery in 2008-9 – more than double the total two years previously.

In Yorkshire, 434 women and 150 men had operations paid for by the NHS. Projections for the year to March this year suggest more than 900 severely-obese people will have surgery at a cost of 7.3m.

In England, almost a quarter of adults were obese in 2008 while one in six boys and one in seven girls were also obese. The report found more people were exercising but only two in five men and fewer than one in three women worked out at recommended levels.

Peter Hollins, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said the figures were a "wake-up call". He said: "We need action from government and industry to create an environment which helps and encourages people to live healthier lives.

"One clear step forward would be implementing a single food labelling system to help shoppers understand what's in the food they're buying."

Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said: "These statistics not only show how severe the UK's adult obesity problem is but also how the cost of surgery could ultimately cripple the NHS unless we do something serious about prevention."