Half of Europeans are Overweight

[AB Editor]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11935525

///The rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most EU member states, international experts say.

The UK comes out worst, shortly followed by Ireland and Malta, where a quarter of the population is obese.///

Does anyone here agree with the "fat tax" concept as a way of dealing with this problem? If not, what other options would you suggest?

[ChuckFickens]

A fat tax is a ridicules idea, what next, a tall tax? a monobrow tax (actually that's not a bad one!)

Education is the answer, mainly education of parents not to start their "little darlings" off eating crap all the time.

[squarebear]

Would be interesting to see where the US is on that chart.

[Booldawg]

maybe introduce a ginger tax first and see how that pans out.

[jackthehat]

Why is the EU there in addition to all of the countries in the EU ?

[ChuckFickens]

sb... not quite as upto date, but figures for the USA

http://upload.wikimed...sityRate1960-2004.gif

[squarebear]

70% chuck!!

Reminds me of the old joke, "Did you know that one in three Americans is as fat as the other two".

[ummmm]

Fat tax won't work.

Putting up the price of beer and cigarettes haven't stopped people doing it.

[Booldawg]

how can they say 'half of europeans are overweight' when they havent weighed everyone in Europe?

[dotty.]

who have they surveyed? Noone surveyed me about this,

[NazNomad]

An embargo on Coca-Cola and MuckDonalds (et al).
A 10,000% increase in Broadband charges.
Better weather in the U.K.

[dotty.]

Booldawg BTW nothing happened to me I;ve been here all along!

[dotty.]

oops.chatting off topic, ahem

[jno]

jack: to show you how they average out, I suppose. Non-EU countries like Norway and Switzerland come very low on the list, showing that not being in the Union results in their citizens starving.

[Lou_Lou26]

I'd be interested to know what measure they are using to assess the cut off for obesity here..... you can be a uk size 14 and technically obese according to some measures...... I know someone who is a size 10 and is classed as obese.... figure that!

[tiggerblue10]

Considering Luxemburg and Malta are small countries with small populations their percentages are pretty high.

Are these % based on medical records?

[AB Editor]

///Education is the answer, mainly education of parents not to start their "little darlings" off eating crap all the time.///

How do you educate parents? They tend to be quite resilient to suggestions that they might not actually know what is best for their children.

If you can't read the bit at the bottom:

///Source OECD Heath Data2010, Eurostat Statistics Database, WHO Global Infobase.///

[Count-A-Strong]

the 13.6% figure for the Germans casts some doubt on the validity of the stats judging by my experiences in their country and on holiday.

[tiggerblue10]

Jamie Oliver tried to educate parents but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Even if schools provide nutricious food instead of junk food you can't control what parents give them.

There was a woman in the US who was feeding her babies McDonalds!

[tiggerblue10]

*Nutritious

[youngmafbog]

And you cant stop the parents as you would be depriving them of their 'ooman rights !