The researchers say that this will adding an extra £2 billion a year in medical costs for treating obesity-related diseases.
The paper suggests that unless effective action curbs the growth in obesity that by 2030 there will be 26m people in the UK who are obese - a rise of 73% from the current 15m.
The Lancet paper was one of a series examining issues surrounding the current worldwide obesity ‘pandemic’. The predictions come from one of these studies, which looked at obesity data from the US and UK, which have had the highest obesity levels in the world over the past 20 years.
Such modelling studies are used to alert governments and health services to potential future scenarios, allowing them to decide what actions are needed.
The authors point out, these projections are merely extrapolations of currently available data, and uncertainties always exist when making predictions as past trends do not always predict future trends.