High school students in Oz grow up to be heart attack victims: Study

Melbourne, Feb 9 (ANI): A survey of secondary students in Australia has revealed that teens of today will end up being victims of heart attack in the future.

The largest survey of Australian secondary students in 25 years has revealed a "chronic disease time bomb", with laid-back exercise habits and poor diets as the norm.

The survey took in 12,000 teenagers across almost 240 schools and found one in four was overweight or obese.

Just 14 percent of the students were found to meet both the recommended daily intake of vegetables and fruit, while 85 percent did not engage in enough activity for it to have a health benefit.

Cancer Council Australia chief executive Professor Ian Olver said these results should sound an alarm bell among educators, health professionals and parents.

"If ever there was a wake-up call for Australians, this is it," News.com.au quoted Prof Olver as saying.

"As obese kids move into adulthood, the heightened risk of chronic diseases like cancer means previous gains in life expectancy may be reversed.

"We may see today's teenagers die at a younger age than their parents' generation for the first time in history," he stated.

Cancer Council Australia and the National Heart Foundation commissioned the National Secondary Students' Diet and Activity survey 2009-10, the first truly national survey of year 8-11 students since 1985.

National Heart Foundation of Australia chief executive Dr Lyn Roberts said all policymakers should be disturbed by the findings.

"This piece of research confirms what we've feared for some time - the high school students of today will grow up to be the heart attack victims of tomorrow," she added. (ANI)