India, Nov. 1 -- Obesity is one of the major health crises. It is one of the biggest risk factors of major chronic ailments, from diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, to certain cancers. As per the World Health Organization's May 2025 report, worldwide in 2024, 35 million is the estimated number of overweight children just under the age of 5. While according to the World Heart Federation, the overall estimated number of overweight and obese children is around 2.3 billion.

To understand what's driving these alarming numbers, HT Lifestyle reached out to Dr Manjula Sridhar, nutritionist at Apollo Spectra Hospital in Chennai, who revealed that poor habits are to be blamed.

"Obesity results from both excess dietary energy (from a...