Stomach surgery to tackle obesity jumped 40% in England last year in bad news about the state of the nation’s health and bulging waistline.

Operations to reduce stomach size such as stomach stapling and gastric by-passes rose to 2,724 in 2007-2008, NHS figures revealed this week showed. Hospital admissions for obesity-related problems grew 30% to more than 5,000 in the same period. They are up seven-fold in a decade, the figures showed. And the number of prescriptions dispensed to treat obesity rose by 16% last year to 1.23 million.

“The report highlights the scale of the country’s obesity problem and shows increasing NHS treatment using weight-loss surgery and medications,” said Tim Straughan, the head of the NHS Information Centre.

On a positive note the report found that since 1997 more people were exercising to fight the flab, and since 2001 more adults and children eat more fruit and vegetables.

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