A large study by Dutch researchers has found that today’s youth are so unhealthy that they are actually “15 years older” than their parents and grandparents were at the same age.

The Daily Mail is reporting that the study, which looked at 6,000 adults aged 20 to 50 over a 25-year period, found that younger people have much poorer “metabolic” health than their parents generation. Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity are much more prevalent in younger folks than they were at the same age in past generations.

The study, which was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found that men in their 30s were 20 percent more likely to be overweight than men in previous generations. Women in their 20’s are twice as likely to be obese than they were even 10 years ago.

Increase in body weight has caused a subsequent rise in blood pressure problems and diabetes.

“The more recently born adult generations are doing far worse than their predecessors,” said the study’s author Gerben Hulsegge of the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

“For example, the prevalence of obesity in our youngest generation of men and women at the mean age of 40 is similar to that of our oldest generation at the mean age of 55. This means that this younger generation is ’15 years ahead’ of the older generation and will be exposed to their obesity for a longer time.”

The prevalence of smoking in Western countries has declined but obesity now seems to be the culprit behind the diminished health of today’s youth. Smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer are now giving way to obesity-related diseases such as diabetes.

He told the Mail that young people need to be encouraged to strive for a healthy body weight by eating a balanced diet and increasing their physical activity.

“This decrease in smoking prevalence and improved quality of health care are now important driving forces behind the greater life expectancy of younger generations, and it’s likely that in the near future life expectancy will continue to rise,” he said.

“But it’s also possible that in the more distant future, as a result of our current trends in obesity, the rate of increase in life expectancy may well slow down, although it’s difficult to speculate about that.”

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