Britain’s obesity crisis is costing UK nearly £100billion a year and will ruin Rishi Sunak’s plans to get the sick back to work, analysis suggests

Britain's bulging waistline is costing almost £100 billion a year and will ruin Rishi Sunak's plan to get sick people back to work, analysis suggests.

The country's obesity problem is making it 'sick and impoverished', says the government's former food adviser Henry Dimbleby, with two-thirds of Britons overweight.

Ministers are being urged by Mr Dimbleby to crack down on junk food by imposing smoking restrictions, warning the figures are a 'disaster' and the NHS will 'suck the money out of other public services'.

Obesity-related diseases cost the NHS an estimated £19.2 billion per year, while productivity losses amount to around £15.1 billion.

The total cost is estimated at a crippling £98 billion, with an additional £63 billion due to shorter, unhealthier lives, according to figures from The Times.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons

This figure is expected to increase by a further £10 billion over the next fifteen years as the population ages and future governments could be left 'crippled'.

The new figures came to light after the Tony Blair Institute commissioned Frontier Economics to update the analyzes from 2020.

Hermione Dace from the Tony Blair Institute said: 'We need a new approach to giving people real options, rebalancing the food system in favor of healthy, cost-effective choices and eliminating the benefits of taking advantage of ultra-processed foods and junk food. discouraged.'

A ban on junk food ads after 9pm and buying freebies on unhealthy food has long been mooted, but has been postponed until 2025.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health stressed that it was “taking strong action to tackle obesity”.

Obesity-related diseases cost the NHS an estimated £19.2 billion per year, with productivity losses of around £15.1 billion (stock image)