Forget Terrorism. It's Obesity That's Killing Us.

At the Oxford Health Alliance Conference experts suggested that world governments should pay more attention to overcoming deadly factors such as poor diet, smoking and a lack of exercise and less time and money on terrorism.

Global terrorism was a real threat but posed far less risk than obesity, diabetes and smoking-related illnesses, prominent US professor of health law Lawrence Gostin said at the Oxford Health Alliance Summit here.

While we've been focusing so much attention on terrorism we've had this silent epidemic of obesity that's killing millions of people around the world, and we're devoting very little attention to it and a negligible amount of money."

The fifth annual conference of the Oxford Health Alliance -- co-founded by Oxford University -- has brought together world experts from academia, government, business, law, economics and urban planning to promote change.

An estimated 388 million people will die from chronic disease worldwide over the next 10 years, according to World Health Organisation figures quoted by the alliance.

Put simply, we need to build physical activity back into our lives....