The food you eat could be killing you. British chef and food advocate Jamie Oliver visited this summer's One Young World summit held in Zurich, in Switzerland, to carry this message to tomorrow's leaders: care about what you eat.
It may sound strange to bring such a bold message to a meeting where many of the delegates were from developing countries where a lack of food is often the issue. But Oliver disagrees. 'For the first time in history, being overweight is killing more people than being under weight,' he says. 'What is crazy is that even countries that struggle with hunger or famine are beginning to see the exact opposite situation - families in cities eating themselves to death on processed food.'
Each year about 5.8 million people die from a disease called diabetes, which gives sufferers problems with blood sugar levels. In 90per cent of those cases, diabetes is caused by being overweight. We used to think of fatness as a Western problem, but that is no longer the case. Statistics from China and India are just as frightening.
'The US isn't even in the top 10 countries,' Oliver says. 'It's kids in Egypt and Algeria, in Chile and Argentina, pretty much all of South America. China is right behind the US. These are your kids.'
Obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer are the world's big killers. 'But the crazy thing is, they're also the most preventable, and nothing is being done about it,' he says.
Oliver was forthright and says he needs to speak this way because the world faces a health catastrophe, and few people are paying attention.
One of the biggest causes of obesity and diet-related diseases is sugar, he says. 'Traditionally we've used sugar as a treat and put it in things like cakes. But these days it is being laced into so many soft drinks, and even savoury foods, that it's like a secret ingredient.'