Fat Young Aussies Ruin Sporty Image Forget fit, tanned and sporty ?the new generation of Australians is fast becoming fat, pale and lazy. A love of junk food, television and computer games has sent the country's waistline ballooning, with Australians weighing in as the world's second fattest nation after the United States. Rather than hitting the beaches, thousands of young Aussies are heading for the couch with a bag of popcorn, with one child in every four classified as overweight or obese. The trend is squashing the widely-held image of Australians being sun-bronzed and superfit. "The rate of obesity, particularly among children, seems to be going up faster in Australia than anywhere else in the world, but we don't know why," said Dr Peter Williams, president of the Dietitians Association of Australia. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, estimate 60 percent of men, 50 percent of women and 25 percent of children are overweight or obese ?a huge jump from five percent in the 1960s. A sedentary lifestyle and a changing diet has doubled the number of obese Australians and trebled the army of fat children in the past decade, pushing direct health costs related to childhood obesity to about A million (294 million pounds) a year. Data shows childhood obesity in Australia is rising at the rate of one percent a year, a trend which suggests half of all young Australians will be overweight by 2025. Australia's rapid weight gain has health agencies and state governments racing to find ways to encourage people to get on their feet and shed some kilograms ?while sending the weight-loss industry skipping to the bank, pocketing A billion a year.