First Lady Michelle Obama, pictured on December 1, a champion of measures to fight childhood obesity in the United States, welcomed passage in Congress Thursday of a law aimed at improving the quality of school meals. (AFP/File/Jewel Samad)
Posted on 12/07/2010 2:34:25 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BRUSSELS (AFP) – More than half of European adults are now overweight and too many children smoke or are obese, raising the risk of cancer or heart attacks, a European health report showed Tuesday.
Just over 15 percent of adults in the European Union are obese, a rate that has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most EU states, the study found.
The obesity rate ranges from less than 10 percent in Romania and Italy to more than 20 percent in Britain, Ireland and Malta, said the report issued by the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Among children aged between 11 and 15, one in seven is overweight or obese across the 27-nation bloc, and the figure will rise, the report said. The rate is higher in southern Europe, where one in five suffers from excessive weight.
"Children who are obese or overweight are more likely to suffer from poor health later in life, with a greater risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, some forms of cancer, arthritis, asthma, a reduced quality of life and even premature death," the commission said.
A measure of obesity is body mass index (BMI), which is calculated by dividing a person's weight by the square of the person's height.
A person with a BMI of 25 or more is overweight while someone whose index exceeds 30 is generally considered obese, according to the World Health Organisation.
One in five 15-year-olds smoke in the European Union, while 40 percent in Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland and Lithuania admit having been drunk at least two times.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Seems like only yesterday they were sniggering at all the fat American tourists.
First Lady Michelle Obama, pictured on December 1, a champion of measures to fight childhood obesity in the United States, welcomed passage in Congress Thursday of a law aimed at improving the quality of school meals. (AFP/File/Jewel Samad)
That’s right. Just a couple weeks ago that insufferable Brit transplant Edmund Morris sneered about obese Americans. Take a look in the cultural mirror before you sneer again, lard-asses.
Well lets see...I weigh 14.3 stone and am 72" tall.
72x72 = 5184
14.3 / 5184 = .002 BMI
Looks like I'm in great shape. I may even need to gain some more weight!
Funny, I have to hear all the time how fit they are because they walk everywhere.
Doesn’t compute in my head when I see them here in the USA as tourists.
They’re just as fast us, maybe more.
Meh... The BMI scale only applies to metrosexuals with a really fine bone structure.
quick, send the first wookie over there - the sight of her will make them throw up.
I bet these are just round figures!
; ]
What sucks is I am about half way between those two images. I could lose 20-25 lbs and look like the guy on the left, but I’d need to lose 60+ to be “fit” by the BMI scale.
Yeah, that’s the other problem with BMI. You can be anywhere on the spectrum of fat vs. muscle percentage, but bmi doesn’t discriminate. Adding waist size would at least count for something.
The good BMI calculators do. You compute in your age, sex, neck, waist and hip size etc. They give a very accurate BMI and body fat%
Bodybuilding.com has them on their website.
non nom nom to the woman on the left.
You know that Americans are responsible for WWI and WWII, don't you? /sarc
Heh.
You must work for JPL....
So true! I remember when my husband was in the military this was a conflict. People who were in fantastic physical shape could be considered overweight because the only factors considered were height and weight,not athletic,muscular,development.
The BMI is a scam.
Sorry,I disagree. What you say doesn’t account for variations in basic physical makeup. I’m a woman who has very wide shoulders,a wide,deep chest,wide waist,very narrow hips and a comparatively short torso with long legs and arms.
I have been a bodybuilder in excellent condition and yet my waist measurement was always high because of the way I’m built. My BMI almost put me in the overweight range.
Not all women have small waists and larger hips and thighs. I’m the opposite,yet at 5’6” tall and 130lbs I could squat 450 and do 90lb seated overhead military presses. My problem was that my hips and legs were too thin.
The BMI is very inaccurate. One size fits all doesn’t make it.
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