News report here in England. For those of you not familiar with what 4st means, it's 4 stones, one stone equals 14 pounds. So she should have weighed about 28 pounds but weighed 84 instead, at the age of 3.

Obesity Kills Three-Year-Old Girl

A three-year-old girl has died from heart failure brought on through obesity, it has emerged.

The news comes as ministers and food industry chiefs face mounting pressure after a damning report condemned them for failing to tackle Britain's obesity epidemic.

The Commons Health Committee warned that obese children could become the first generation to die before their parents.

One specialist consultant cited the case of a three-year-old dying from heart failure where extreme obesity was a contributory factor.

The dead youngster was a Bengali girl from east London, the Daily Mail reported. She should have weighed around 2st 4lb but had a Body Mass Index (BMI) that equated to around 6st.

Dr Nigel Meadows, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal London Hospital, told the newspaper: "It was a shocking case. You don't imagine your kid is just going to die of obesity. The parents were devastated.

"Some may say the parents are responsible, but if a child is demanding food it can be very difficult to refuse it.''

The committee's report criticised ministers, the NHS, food manufacturers and advertisers for not doing enough to improve the nation's health and raise awareness of the risks of being overweight or obese.

The report made recommendations to kick-start action amid gloomy predictions of a future where serious diseases caused by obesity are common.

Not all the measures were welcomed by the food industry, while the Health Secretary John Reid said individuals also had a major role to play in their own health.

The report calculates that being overweight or obese costs the nation £7.4billion a year.

The committee called for a voluntary withdrawal of TV advertising of junk food to children - but warned that if action was not taken within three years, the Government should step in to introduce more direct regulation.

The MPs said a "traffic light'' system should be introduced on food labelling to show consumers the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods. Red would indicate foods high in calories, amber for medium levels and green for low.