India, Jan. 7 -- There's a natal link between childhood/adolescent obesity and a range of diseases, including chronic conditions such as diabetes, endocrinal dysfunction, and sudden-onset life-threatening illnesses, in later life. So, government interventions to curb early-years obesity are central to national health strategies, especially in jurisdictions where the State funds health care entirely, or to a significant degree. It is against this backdrop that the UK has banned junk food advertisements from the online space and restricted their airing on television to only after 9 pm. The goal is to check their influence on children's dietary choices: Restricting the reach of commercials, some experts believe, can give a significant boost to healthy dietary choices and reduce the temptation to consume junk food. The ad-controls follow a series of steps by the UK government to confront the country's childhood obesity crisis - prevalence of 22% among primary-age children - including higher taxes on high-sugar-content products and empowering local governments to bar junk food outlets near schools. India's situation may not seem as dire (NFHS-5 reported a prevalence of 3.4% among children under five years of age), but the trends are certainly worrying. Between the NFHS-3 (2005-06) and NFHS-5 (2019-21), under-five prevalence shot up by 127% and prevalence among adolescent girls and boys by 125% and 288%, respectively. Rising sales of ultra-processed food (a compounded annual growth rate of over 13% between 2011 and 2021), high-calorie/high-sugar foods likely explain these trends, too. While India's food regulator has pushed for more direct and accessible labelling of nutritional value and ingredients of packaged foods, the government should consider more active interventions like the UK to induce healthy choices among the young. With a rising burden of lifestyle diseases, India will do well to remember the adage, "prevention is better than cure"....