We Are Eating Ourselves Ill ; Special Report ++ Diet and Health ++ Treating Malnutrition Costs NHS More Than Obesity ++ We Are Continually Warned about the Need to Watch Our Weight, but Many of Us Are Not Eating Enough Nutrients to Stay Healthy. Cole Moreton on the Hidden Sickness in Our Fast-Food Nation

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Coke,ritain is fat. We know that. Chefs B and doctors, footballers and even pop stars tell us over and over again, in campaigns against the obesity epidemic. But now, as The Independent on Sunday reveals, new data show that an alarming number of Britons actually suffer from malnutrition.

Doctors estimate that more than three million people are malnourished. Most do not re-alise it, although diagnosis rates in hospitals have soared by 44 per cent over the past five years. The most extreme cases echo symptoms found among famine victims in the developing world. Wasted limbs and pot bellies are being seen in British hospitals, where 40 per cent of patients are thought to …