I was just listening to the BBC World Service and heard an Indian lady talking about the problem of obesity in her country.

This is at first a rather surprising fact since we tend to have an image of India as a very poor country where many go hungry. And in fact this is true , India does have 1/3 of the world's poorest people within her extensive borders . But India also has an enormous upper middle class ( about 300 million ) who have incredible wealth and can afford to hire maids , drivers and other servants very cheaply. So nobody rich walks anywhere, there is very little need even to climb stairs and western style fast food is all the rage. Children use their mobile phones to get others to bring them all they want and are becoming more and more sedentary .

As a result there are large numbers of obese adults and children and
the Indian government has become very concerned about the problem .
Asked if burgers and chips have not been shown to be unhealthy , children just laugh it off and carry right on . Some Indian children are putting on weight at a rate of 5 kilos (about 11 lb ) every month and one man said that he was going to have to sell one of his kidneys in order to get obesity treatment for his son .

What a shame .

What can governments do ?

Do the parents of these children not realise that they are responsible for letting their offspring be so lazy and overindulged ? Surely they could be better parents ?

Any thoughts ?