Europeans challenging U.S. in size
Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Posted: 1334 GMT (2134 HKT)


BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- At least seven European countries now challenge the United States in size -- at least around the waistline.

In a group of nations from Greece to Germany, the proportion of overweight or obese men is higher than in the United States, experts said Tuesday in a major analysis of expanding girth on the European continent.

"The time when obesity was thought to be a problem on the other side of the Atlantic has gone by," said Mars Di Bartolomeo, Luxembourg's Minister of Health.

In Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Malta and Slovakia, a higher percentage of men are obese or overweight than the estimated 67 percent of men in the United States, according to a report from the International Obesity Task Force, a coalition of researchers and institutions.

The analysis was released as the 25-nation European Union announced an initiative to enlist the food and marketing industries in the fight against fat.

Obesity is especially acute in Mediterranean countries, underscoring concerns that people in the southern region are turning away from the traditional diet of fish, fruits and vegetables to fast food high in fat and refined carbohydrates.

In Greece, for example, 38 percent of women are obese, compared with 34 percent in the United States, the group said.

Even in countries with low rates of obesity, troubling trends are emerging. In France, obesity in women rose from 8 percent in 1997 to 11.3 percent in 2003, and from 8.4 percent to 11.4 percent in men.

The change in diets, which the obesity task force said has occurred over the past two decades, affects children most because it is reflected in school lunches.

The task force estimated that among the EU's 103 million youngsters the number of those overweight rises by 400,000 each year. More than 30 percent of children ages 7 to 11 are overweight in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Malta, it said.

That matches estimates for American children. Among American adults, about two-thirds are overweight or obese; nearly one-third qualify as obese.

The International Obesity Task Force, which is advising the European Union, had estimated in 2003 that about 200 million of the 350 million adults living in what is now the European Union may be overweight or obese.

However, a closer evaluation of the figures in the latest analysis indicated that may be an underestimate, according to the group.

To counter the worsening trend, the EU is pushing a united effort from the food and marketing industries, consumer groups and health experts.

"The industry is being challenged to demonstrate, transparently, that it is going to be part of the solution," Philip James, chairman of the IOTF said in a telephone interview after the launch of the program in Brussels.

"They have to say how much more money they will add to help solve the obesity problem. They have to put forward a plan on how exactly they are going to contribute year by year, and their contribution has to get bigger every year," he added.

The food industry says it will better inform consumers with detailed nutrition labels. The EU office also wants tastier healthy foods to compete with high-calorie, non-nutritious fare.

Studies have shown that being overweight can dramatically increase the risk of certain diseases, such as diabetes. Obesity is also linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, respiratory disease, arthritis and some types of cancer.

"We can have disastrous effects from (obesity) on health and the national economy," EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/...u.ap/index.html

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Supersize Moi?

I read this on someone else's paper in the subway this morning, and really thought it was quite cute: Clearly the paper had a "Ha - take that you Europeans"-attitude, but if you look at what the numbers say, then it's really not much.
Yes, in some countries of Europe more people are overweight, but that's not the same as saying that sampling a European and an American then the European ought to be the fatter one. I think that the definition of obese is fairly broad, covering both 500 pound whales trapped in their bedroom, and people weighing only a little too much. When both specimens are put into the same group, important details are lost.
Ridiculous example using invented numbers: In Greece I may have a 38% chance of ending up with an overweight girl, but only a 1% chance of it being a whale, whereas in the US there's only a 34% chance of finding someone overweight, but a healthy 10% of the overweight people are whales. Thus I have a 3.4% chance of getting a whale in the US and only a 0.4 chance of getting one in Greece, even though Greece using the logics of the quoted article is the "fatter" country. Get my point?

I maintain that a sedentary lifestyle is overwhelmingly more responsible for current obesity trends than poor dietary choices.

quote:

Ridiculous example using invented numbers: In Greece I may have a 38% chance of ending up with an overweight girl, but only a 1% chance of it being a whale, whereas in the US there's only a 34% chance of finding someone overweight, but a healthy 10% of the overweight people are whales. Thus I have a 3.4% chance of getting a whale in the US and only a 0.4 chance of getting one in Greece, even though Greece using the logics of the quoted article is the "fatter" country. Get my point?

Don't worry, it's just that so much weight takes some time to accumulate. At this rate, I have no doubt that any whaling expeditions you're planning in Greece in another decade or so will be highly successful.

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Get my point?

I think so. The Greeks are "big-boned" right?

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Originally posted by occrider I think so. The Greeks are "big-boned" right?

They are "big, fat & Greek". Apparently they have weddings too. Look at Jimmy the Greek and John Siragusa!

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Originally posted by trancaholic I read this on someone else's paper in the subway this morning, and really thought it was quite cute: Clearly the paper had a "Ha - take that you Europeans"-attitude, but if you look at what the numbers say, then it's really not much. Yes, in some countries of Europe more people are overweight, but that's not the same as saying that sampling a European and an American then the European ought to be the fatter one. I think that the definition of obese is fairly broad, covering both 500 pound whales trapped in their bedroom, and people weighing only a little too much. When both specimens are put into the same group, important details are lost. Ridiculous example using invented numbers: In Greece I may have a 38% chance of ending up with an overweight girl, but only a 1% chance of it being a whale, whereas in the US there's only a 34% chance of finding someone overweight, but a healthy 10% of the overweight people are whales. Thus I have a 3.4% chance of getting a whale in the US and only a 0.4 chance of getting one in Greece, even though Greece using the logics of the quoted article is the "fatter" country. Get my point?

Ok I went to look at the study itself and it appears your analysis is slightly off. First of all, the definition of obesity and overweight is not broad at all since they used a body mass index of > 25 to define an "overweight" individual and a body mass index of greater than 30 to define an "obese" individual (the same as the US). Translating that into something tangible, a female who is 5ft 6inches (168cm) would have to be approximately 155 lb (70.3kg) to have a BMI of 25. Now I personally would say that’s bordering whale country, but I guess others might like a bit of meat on their girls. Now, a girl of the same height would have to be 185 lb (84kg) to have a BMI of 30. I think I can safely say that a medically obese person is a "whale" in whatever country you're in.

Going back to your point, while it is true in general that you would encounter less “whales” in Europe by factoring out all the “overweight” girls (I would beg to differ on your taxonomy of the Cetacea order … but to each their own), however your specific use of Greece as a comparison was a particularly poor choice. According to the results of the study, if you went to Greece looking for love, you would actually have a 38.1% chance of finding a “whale” whereas you would have a 34% chance in the US.

http://www.iotf.org/media/euobesity3.pdf

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Originally posted by Shakka Supersize Moi?

roflmeaux

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quote:

Originally posted by occrider Ok I went to look at the study itself and it appears your analysis is slightly off. First of all, the definition of obesity and overweight is not broad at all since they used a body mass index of > 25 to define an "overweight" individual and a body mass index of greater than 30 to define an "obese" individual (the same as the US). Translating that into something tangible, a female who is 5ft 6inches (168cm) would have to be approximately 155 lb (70.3kg) to have a BMI of 25. Now I personally would say that’s bordering whale country, but I guess others might like a bit of meat on their girls. Now, a girl of the same height would have to be 185 lb (84kg) to have a BMI of 30. I think I can safely say that a medically obese person is a "whale" in whatever country you're in.

I take your point that the definitions are the same for US and European girls (but still think that 85 kg girl would fit more naturally in the group of normal weight persons than with the monster who cannot get out of bed. Figuratively speaking I would rather group an orca whale with a dolphin than a blue whale, even though both the orca and blue whale would classify as "big".)
However, my point was not really that differing definitions made the study invalid (nor that Greeks are big boned ), rather that the summary given in the article was useless, as many kinds of realities could be hiding behind the reported numbers. Hence the ridiculous example.

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Originally posted by occrider Going back to your point, while it is true in general that you would encounter less “whales” in Europe by factoring out all the “overweight” girls (I would beg to differ on your taxonomy of the Cetacea order … but to each their own), however your specific use of Greece as a comparison was a particularly poor choice. According to the results of the study, if you went to Greece looking for love, you would actually have a 38.1% chance of finding a “whale” whereas you would have a 34% chance in the US.

I didn't really give much consideration to picking Greece, it was just one of the European countries where I had never been, for which I could be sure the numbers I would come up with would be free of associations to reality.
As to whether there's any real difference between Europeans or Americans I wouldn't dare say. I have been in California and New York, and loads of places in Europe, and I haven't really noticed any difference. Maybe it's because I tend to focus my attention on beatiful people rather than whales.

What Europeans need are weapons of mass reduction.....

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Originally posted by zig What Europeans need are weapons of mass reduction.....

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