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London face a series of "shocking" public health threats, including the emergencies caused by tobacco, alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise and pollution, the London Health Commission (LHC) said in a report presented to London mayor Boris Johnson Wednesday.
The report, entitled "Better Health for London", was developed as an independent review by a panel of experts led by Ara Darzi, chairman of the LHC.
The LHC was established by mayor Johnson in September last year to examine the health of Londoners. It has involved 15,000 people in its development, aspiring to make London the healthiest major global city in ten years.
The report proposed over 60 recommendations, including tough measures to combat the threats posed by tobacco, alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise and pollution that harm millions of people.
"Londoners' waistlines are expanding, since we eat too much and exercise too little. More than a million Londoners still smoke, and there is significant harm from problem drinking. Too many children get off to too poor a start in life," said Ara Darzi, chairman of the LHC.
According to the report, smoking remains a major challenge to London's public health. Around 1.2 million Londoners still smoke, causing 8,400 early deaths each day, and 67 London school children take up the habit everyday.
To meet this challenge, Darzi called for a smoke-free plan for London's Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square and 20,000 acres of parks in the capital.
The report cited obesity as another major challenge to the city' s overall health.
In London, around 3.8 million people are deemed as obese or overweight; just 13 percent of people walk to work; and 7 percent of deaths are directly related to poor air quality, according to the report.
The LHC also said that the National Health Service (NHS) system is facing financial pressure. It noted that care needs to be made more personal and organized round patients and their needs rather than the system and its rules.
In the report, Darzi set out five steps to make London "healthier, slimmer, and fitter."
Proposed measures included mandatory traffic-light labeling on restaurant menus; Oyster travel card discounts for commuters who walk to work; prevention of new junk food outlets opening within 400 meters of schools; more pricing restrictions for alcohol; and speeding up air quality measures.
The report also called for a one-billion-pound (1.60 billion U. S. dollars) investment over the next five years to modernize general practitioner surgeries, since one third of which are rated "very poor" or "unacceptable."
"We can do better: the healthiest choice isn't always easy and isn't always obvious. The goal is to make each of those millions of individual decisions that bit easier," Darzi added.
