It is a region where 59% of adults, 8% of children under five, and 33% of school-aged children are overweight or obese. percentages “higher than any other part of the world except the Americas”, warns The Guardian.
Obesity has become a major problem in Europe according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which published a long study on the subject on Tuesday, May 3, the main conclusions of which are relayed by the British daily. On the Old Continent – and the few other countries (including Russia) that make up the Europe region according to the division made by the WHO – the international organization even considers that obesity has reached “epidemic proportions”.
But what exactly do we mean by this term?
“We speak of obesity when a person has a Body Mass Index of more than 30, while we consider that when this is between 25 and 29.99, the person is overweight”, notes the London media. If we follow this criterion, the report reveals that 24% of women and 22% of men today live in this condition.
A condition that causes 200,000 cases of cancer and 1.2 million deaths per year, according to the WHO. In some countries of the region, the report continues, “obesity is even predicted to overtake smoking as the leading risk factor for preventable cancer” in the years to come.
Tax sugary drinks
The picture drawn by the WHO is therefore worrying, but the World Health Organization still believes that it is possible to reverse the trend, which is why it issues a series of advice to governments.
“The report calls for measures such as taxes on sugary drinks and subsidies for healthy eating, abstract The Guardian, but also to stop the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.”
Then, among the other measures envisaged, the WHO proposes to limit the proliferation of take-out food shops in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, better labeling of baby food, or even the establishment of nutritional food standards in nurseries. . Finally, the corporate world should also do its part by offering wellness programs to help employees improve their physical condition.