Four Dieters Embark On Weight Loss Mission

Sky News is following four people as they embark on a mission to lose excess weight and answer the question whether diets really hold the key to tackling Britain's obesity epidemic.

Safira Ali , 32, weighs more than 17st and wants to shed the pounds to have children.

She said the thought that being overweight could stop her having kids was "just devastating".

Hywel Roberts , 33, weighs 15st 9lb and is concerned about his long-term health and body image.

Michelle Okpocha , 47, weighs over 15st and says she was lighter when she was pregnant. She has also been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

"The high blood pressure, I've never really had that before, and the possibility of getting cancer through weight gain is frightening," she said.

Philip Wark , 38, weighs more than 18 stone and believes he is living "on borrowed time".

Sky will follow them as they each try different medically-supervised diets to see whether they can achieve their goals and go on to keep the weight off.

Some £5.1bn a year is spent by the NHS on problems caused by eating too much and not taking enough exercise - and experts warn it will be completely swamped if action is not taken.

Latest figures show the number of hospital admissions linked to obesity in England rose tenfold in the 10 years to 2012-13 - from 29,237 to 292,404.

Tom Sanders, emeritus professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London, told Sky News the NHS could not cope with the increased demand for surgery to help with weight loss.

"Unless obesity can be successfully prevented, it will overwhelm the NHS," he said.

However, an even greater burden is type 2 diabetes, which can cause a host of life-limiting and deadly conditions, including strokes, heart attacks and cancer.

Something undeniably needs to be done, but does the diet industry hold the answer?

Politicians agree it is a huge problem but are divided when it comes to how to deal with it.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says part of the solution relies on early intervention.

"I think the shocking statistic is that 9% of children enter primary school clinically obese and 19% leave obese. That is just not acceptable and we need to do a lot more."

Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham told Sky part of the answer lies in "exercise on referral or on prescription".

"So instead of people being put on medication, people are put on specialist weight management and exercise courses to break the cycle and get control," he said.