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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Britons 'fattest in European Union'

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Britons are the fattest in the European Union, a report said

More than half of people in the European Union are overweight or obese and Britons are the fattest, a report said.

A quarter of adults in the UK are obese, ahead of Ireland (23%), Malta (22%), Iceland (20%) and Luxembourg (20%).

At the other end of the scale, 10% of Italians are obese, while the figure is 11% in Holland and France.

On average, just over 15% of the EU adult population is obese.

The study, from the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), examined the health of people in 31 countries, including the 27 European Union member states.

It found that adults in the UK drink 10.8 litres on average of alcohol every year – the same as the EU average.

The figure is more than Germany (9.9 litres), Greece (9) and Italy (8.1) but less than France (12.6) and Spain (11.7).

Among 15-year-olds, 40% of those in the UK, Denmark, Lithuania, Finland, Bulgaria and Estonia report having been drunk at least twice in their lifetime.

The EU average was 30% of girls and 38% of boys, with much lower rates in Mediterranean countries such as Malta, Greece, Portugal and Italy, as well as Switzerland and France.

The report found that life expectancy was high in the UK (77.3 years for men and 81.4 for women) but lagged behind other countries when it came to number of years spent in good health, without physical limitation.

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