Northern Ireland has the worst coronary heart disease rate in the world - but the teenage victims of tomorrow refuse to change their life-style.
They love fried foods, start smoking at an early age and rarely exercise, according to a survey of 1,000 teenagers across the British province.Heart attacks are a far more lethal and real threat than one of the world's longest-running guerrilla conflicts in which more than 3,000 people have been killed in the 23-year fight by the Irish Republican Army to oust Britain from Northern Ireland.
The northerner's health troubles begin at the breakfast table with the Ulster Fry, known with typical Belfast black humor as "the heart attack on a plate."
The caring Belfast mother readily reaches for the frying pan to start the day. Fried eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, soda bread, potatoes and mushrooms are fried favorites to clog the arteries.
Parents are not the perfect role models. One in three adults smokes in Northern Ireland and children start early.
Statistics from the World Health Organization show that heart disease killed 559 per 100,000 people in Northern Ireland.
Next came Scotland and Finland. The United States dropped to 320 after major public health campaigns and the fish-eating Japanese were bottom of the table with just 51 deaths per 100,000.
The grim statistics prompted the Northern Ireland health authorities to launch a "change of heart" campaign to alert people to the very real dangers they faced from heart attacks.
Doctors launched a pre-emptive strike with a survey of 1,000 children across the province who were tested for blood pressure, exercise patterns and lifestyle.
The survey of 12-year-olds showed alarmingly that 45 percent of them had at least one coronary heart disease risk factor such as high cholesterol levels, smoking, obesity or high blood pressure.
Now a follow-up survey two years later of those unhealthy teenagers has provided even more cause for concern - nearly three-quarters of them have at least one of the high risk factors, 20 percent had three or more risk factors.