According to a new study, children are three times more likely to be obese as compared to their parents or grandparents.

Researchers gave a warning that the trend was a ‘daunting public health threat’ as many will go on to develop heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and arthritis.

The study by University College London has found that children born in the 1990s were between two to three times more likely to be obese as compared to the ones born between the 1950s and 1980s.

Researchers found that around a fifth of boys and a quarter of girls born after 1990 were obese by the time they became ten years old. But this compared to 7 per cent of boys and 11 per cent of girls born in either the 1940s or 1970s.

Yesterday, the head of the NHS Simon Stevens warned that the nation’s children have been facing a ‘rising tide’ of cancer, heart disease and diabetes all because of their poor lifestyles.

Stevens added that obesity has become normal due to junk food and sugary drinks. He said that millions of parents weren’t even aware that their offspring were seriously overweight.

So far there has been very little research looking into exactly how obesity rates in Britain have changed over time.

During the study, researchers examined the records of 56, 632 adults and children including their weights and heights spanning from the 1940s until 2012.

This enabled them to work out their Body Mass Index, with the help of which they determined the percentage in each generation who were obese.

In the journal PLOS Medicine, they warned, “The obesity epidemic is a daunting public health threat, even in high-income countries with good infrastructure for education and health care”.

According to them, this trend would have ‘severe public health consequences in the coming decades due to illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes.