Already, a staggering 35% of high school girls in South Africa are found to be overweight or obese, putting the country on par with the United States where obesity has more than tripled in the last 30 years.

On the flipside, one in every five South African children under nine is stunted due to under-nutrition.

According to Discovery Vitality’€™s 2010 report card on the physical activity, nutrition and tobacco use of the country’€™s children and youth, stunting is also prevalent in more than a quarter of rural school children.

Professor David Sanders of the University of the Western Cape’€™s School of Public Health said stunting and obesity was often found in the same family.

He said stunted children often became obese as they developed and this could be ascribed to several biological factors, but the common factor in both was a vitamin and mineral deficiency in their diets.

Professor Salome Kruger of Northwest University (NWU) said South African children developed well up to six months as most of them were breastfed, but that it deteriorated after that.

‘€œThe problem starts as soon as our children start eating solid foods,’€ said Kruger of the Centre of Excellence for Nutrition at NWU.

She added that stunted children were not necessarily going hungry, but were rather receiving food that did not contain the nutrients essential for growth at this critical age.

Sanders said stunting, which occurred in the first two years of life, had long-term developmental consequences in terms of the poor mental development of the child.

He added that once obesity was established there were later risks of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and in some cases cancer.

Sanders pointed out that it was important to understand why people’€™s diets had changed.

‘€œIt is very clear that in the past 15 years food availability has changed dramatically in South Africa with processed and packaged food much more affordable and easily available,’€ he said, adding that these foods were often high in fat, salt and sugar.

‘€œThe market has grown massively,’€ he said, adding that the retail sector has almost doubled between 2005 and 2009.

Foreign direct investment has seen large food companies entering the South African market selling food that consists predominantly of processed foods and snacks.

This coupled with a much larger purchasing population has seen the market expand.

A survey in Mt Frere in the Eastern Cape and Khayelitsha in Cape Town revealed that 80 percent of shelf space in supermarkets was taken up by processed foods which was 60 percent cheaper than healthy food.

‘€œIt’€™s cheaper to buy a Coke than it is to buy milk,’€ said Sanders.

He said this phenomenon was global and that government policies that taxed unhealthy food, subsidised fresh food and offered incentives for retailers to stock healthy food was critical.

Professor Hans de Ridder,  Director at NWU’€™s School of Biokinetics, Recreation and Sport Science concurred that childhood obesity was a threat to public health and a ticking time bomb.

De Ridder links the problem to lack of exercise.

In South Africa, children spend on average over four hours a day watching television with many schools not prioritising physical education.

Dr Deepak Patel, Clinical Specialist at Discovery Vitality said research on childhood obesity was paltry in South Africa, but that their medical aid arm was seeing a tremendous rise in chronic diseases among adults. It is their number one spend with all the diseases related to lifestyle.

‘€œWe are seeing these trends in the affluent and less affluent populations,’€ he said.

He said it was critical for children to from early on engage in healthy activity to prevent future problems.