Italy’s Child Obesity Crisis Grows

Italy’s child obesity crisis is widening, and doctors in the south say the problem is now hitting children at alarming levels. In parts of Campania, more than 40% of eight- and nine-year-olds are overweight, while the town of Ponticelli, near Naples, has gained a grim reputation as one of the world’s child obesity capitals. The country that once sold the Mediterranean diet to the world is now confronting a generation far removed from it.

Seventeen-year-old Salvatore is one of the most severe cases. He weighs 170kg and struggles to walk, tie his shoes or even use his Vespa scooter properly. He is waiting for life-changing surgery at Betania Hospital in Ponticelli, where Dr Sonja Chiappetta has spent 15 years treating patients with serious obesity. She says her patients used to be mostly adults in their fifties, but now teenagers as young as 16 are coming through her door. Salvatore cannot have the operation yet because his weight makes it too dangerous, so doctors have given him a GLP-1 weight-loss injection first.

The rise in obesity sits in sharp contrast with Italy’s long image as the home of healthy eating. The Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables, legumes, olive oil, whole grains and fish, was built into global fame after US physiologist Ancel Keys and his wife Margaret Keys linked southern Italian eating habits with low rates of heart disease in the 1950s. Today, experts such as Valter Longo of the University of Southern California say the traditional diet has largely disappeared, with only about 10% of Italians still following it. He describes the modern pattern as pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein and pane, the Italian word for bread.