LONDON, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The number of British children with diabetes largely caused by obesity has soared 40 percent in just four years, press reports said Saturday, quoting official figures.

The figures served as the latest evidence of the toll that obesity is taking on the younger generation in Britain.

Figures this year already showed a record 22,000 children are classed as severely obese, drastically increasing their risk of type 2 diabetes and serious complications including amputations, nerve damage and stroke.

One in 10 British children are obese when they start primary school, rising to one in five when they leave. Mounting concern about the lifelong problems this can cause led British Prime Minister Theresa May to promise a 9 p.m. watershed on junk food advertising and to ban "buy one get one free deals" on unhealthy products.

Izzi Seccombe of the British Local Government Association which analyzed the data, said: "These figures are a sad indictment of how we have failed as a society to tackle childhood obesity."

"Type 2 diabetes typically develops in adult over the age of 40, so while still rare in children, it is extremely worrying that we are seeing more young people develop the condition," she said.

She urged British ministers to reconsider cuts in local government's public health budgets, arguing that this would help them do more to help children eat healthily.

Child obesity largely levelled out during the past decade but has started to edge higher as poor children get fatter while their richer classmates get thinner, according to the reports.

Children with the condition are likely to have their lives shortened by a decade or more, Professor Naveed Sattar, an expert in metabolic medicine from the University of Glasgow, told The Independent newspaper.

"Their chances of getting serious complications in their lifetime will be far greater than an adult with type 2, because they will have that diabetes for several more decades," he said.

"They will be more obese to begin with, their sugar control is worsening faster," Sattar said.

The fact these numbers are going up, though still relatively modest, is a disaster for society, the children and their families and the medical profession," he said.

There is a lack of research on effective treatments for type 2 diabetes in children. But Sattar said drastic interventions such as gastric band surgery have already been used in the U.S. for children with the condition, and may become a reality in the UK.

Severe obesity, defined as having a body mass index of 40 or above -- significantly increases the chances of dying prematurely from breast and colon cancers, heart disease and stroke, as well as diabetes.

Obesity has been dubbed "the new smoking" and is being fuelled around the world by the spread of cheap, high calorie convenience foods which are disproportionately found in the most socially deprived UK boroughs.

Rising childhood obesity means the British National Health Service (NHS) is grappling with the costs of treating chronic conditions and their complications. Throughout patients' entire adult lives, 1 pound (1.28 U.S. dollars) in every 10 pounds is already spent on diabetes.