Islamabad: Childhood obesity is rising at an alarming pace across the globe including Pakistan, as children are increasingly exposed to cheap, ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks, a new UNICEF report has warned, cautioning that the health and future potential of millions of young people is being put at risk.
The Child Nutrition Report 2025: Feeding Profit – How Food Environments Are Failing Children highlights that childhood overweight and obesity have doubled worldwide since 2000.
Regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia — including Pakistan — are among the hardest hit. In many of these countries, obesity has now overtaken underweight as the more common form of malnutrition in children and adolescents.
Unhealthy food environments — dominated by ultra-processed snacks, fried fast food and sugar-sweetened beverages — are reshaping diets everywhere.
These products, often cheaper and more widely available than fruits, vegetables or protein-rich foods, are aggressively marketed through television, social media and even in schools. Nutritionists warn this early exposure is creating lifelong preferences for sugar, salt and fat.
Experts say the consequences are severe. Overweight children are increasingly developing high blood pressure, abnormal blood glucose and cholesterol, raising the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancers in adulthood. Mental health challenges, including depression and low self-esteem, are also emerging among obese adolescents.
The report points to the powerful role of the food and beverage industry, which exploits regulatory gaps to promote its products. In countries like Pakistan, companies have been accused of resisting taxes on sugary drinks, opposing mandatory food labelling, and sponsoring school activities to build brand loyalty among children.
In urban centres such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, traditional meals of lentils, vegetables and roti are rapidly being replaced by packaged snacks, fast food and fizzy drinks.
Paediatricians report a growing number of obese children with vitamin D deficiency, anaemia and poor bone health, underscoring how junk food is fuelling multiple health problems simultaneously.
The financial cost of this nutrition crisis is no less worrying. Globally, unchecked childhood obesity is projected to cost trillions of dollars in healthcare and lost productivity by 2035. For Pakistan, with its already fragile health system and limited spending on public health, experts fear the combined burden of malnutrition and obesity could prove disastrous.
UNICEF has called on governments to act urgently and recommended measures include banning junk food marketing targeted at children, taxing sugary drinks, subsidising nutritious local produce, enforcing front-of-pack labelling, and ensuring healthy school meal standards.
It also urged legal safeguards to prevent industry interference in policymaking and stronger monitoring of children’s diets.
The report stresses that childhood obesity cannot be dismissed as a matter of individual choice or lack of exercise. “It is the toxic food environment that is shaping children’s diets,” UNICEF warned, urging governments from South Asia to Latin America to treat it as a public health emergency demanding bold and immediate policy action.
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