A placeholder for any discussions we might want to have about Health matters. Here's one on the Brits and their awful diets for starters.
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Given that I consumed two bananas while blogging this, my mind is currently boggling: One in five [Brits interviewed] claimed that it was just "impossible" to eat the Government's recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Ready-made excuses put Britons off healthy food
Telegraph
02/10/2006
Reducing obesity may be the aim of doctors, Government ministers and health campaigners but most people lack the discipline to change their eating habits and are brilliant at making excuses, a survey has found. Researchers identified 10 common excuses used by people to justify their consumption of unhealthy food.
...read on...
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Not a new story, but only just came across it. And very Christmassy, as we all stuff our faces.
UK women are now officially the fattest in Europe
Daily Mail
21 February 2007
The scale of the obesity crisis was laid bare last night when an alarming report revealed Britons are the fattest people in Europe. A quarter of women and a fifth of men in the UK are now so overweight that their health is at serious risk. British women head the EU league, with 23 per cent clinically obese, and men fare little better, with 22.3 per cent classified as obese - behind only Malta.
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The shocking figures, compiled by the British women are now officially the most overweight in Europe and men aren't far behind. EU's statistical office, will fuel fears that Britain is facing a public health timebomb created by a growing reliance on fast food and time-saving technology. Experts say that unless the Government acts now, an entire generation faces an old age blighted by heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases brought on by obesity.
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The authoritative Eurostat yearbook places Britain at the top of a chart of obesity of the EU's 27 member countries. Second and third place are taken by Germany and Malta.
Breaking the data down by gender shows that British women are the fattest in Europe, with almost a quarter at least two to three stone over their ideal weight. German women have an obesity rate of 21.7 per cent and Maltese women 21.2 per cent. The thinnest women are in Italy, where fewer than 8 per cent are obese.
The highest rate of male obesity is in Malta, with 25.1 per cent obese. British men are second with a rate of 22.3 per cent, followed by Hungary and Germany. Romania has the best record on male obesity, with just 7.7 per cent obese. Measured by calculating Body Mass Index - a mathematical formula relating height to weight - people are classified as obese if they weigh a fifth more than their ideal maximum weight.
The EU statisticians looked only at adult obesity, but previous studies have shown rates of child obesity are equally worrying. In Britain the figures have trebled in 20 years, with 10 per cent of six-year-olds and 17 per cent of 15-year-olds now obese. Adult obesity rates have nearly quadrupled over the last 25 years, making Britain the second-fattest nation in the developed world, trailing behind only America.
Obesity causes 9,000 premature deaths a year and costs the NHS up to £1billion. Being obese can take nine years off a person's lifespan and raise the risk of a host of health problems including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, infertility and depression. Various cancers, including breast, colon, kidney and stomach cancer, are known to be linked to weight.
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Previous Government drives to cut obesity included offering dance classes on the NHS. In November, TV watchdog Ofcom announced a ban on junk food adverts during programmes targeted at under-16s. The Department of Health also plans to weigh children when they start school and send letters home if they are too fat. The average Briton eats just over three portions of fruit and vegetables a day - well under the recommended five portions a day - and will get through 22,000 ready-meals, sandwiches and sweet snacks in a lifetime - little short of one a day.
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