Obesity will overtake smoking as the biggest preventable cause of cancer in women, a report from Cancer Research UK has suggested.

This "crossover point" will occur in 25 years from now if current trends persist. The charity is now calling for a campaign to raise awareness of the fact that obesity leads to cancer - with only one in seven Britons currently aware that such a link exists.

Britain was last year named as the most overweight nation in western Europe, with obesity rates rising at a higher level than in the US.

The reasons for the predicted shift identified in the report are twofold with both fewer people smoking and an increased incidence of obesity and weight problems in the nation at large.

Public health bodies have long warned of a weight-related epidemic in the UK, with some 62 per cent of the population deemed obese or overweight.