Fat Australians?

[Deleted]

I thought they were all supposed to athletic and mad about sports.

(from the Sydney Morning Herald)

Fat alert: 62 per cent overweight
May 11, 2009 - 4:04PM

Australia is losing the battle of the bulge.

Fresh data shows 62 per cent of people are now overweight or obese, a marked increase from past surveys.

Men and older people are the fattest of all and about a quarter of children are overweight or obese.

But Australians are in denial about their growing waistlines - the statisticians found people consistently claimed to be slimmer than they actually were.

The damning data was collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which measured the height, weight, hips and waists of 22,000 people for the 2007-08 National Health Survey.

People may be packing on the kilos but there's good news on cigarettes - we're smoking less.

One in five adults smoke less than in previous surveys.

The number of people who drink alcohol to a risky level has plateaued, albeit at a higher level than a decade ago.

Young men and middle-aged women are the groups most likely to booze.

The survey outed men as the worst culprits on health no-nos.

Men are more likely than women to smoke and be overweight, and less likely to eat fruit and vegetables.
AAP

[pookie]

He He I didn't participate in that survey, does this mean I am not in the 62% that is overweight?

With both parents working these days I am not surprized kids are overweight. It is so easy to pick up Mac D's on the way home.

Binge drinking by young people is just as big a problem as being overweight.

[Deleted]

This doesn't fit with the image I had of Aussie's at all,thought svelte,healthy,athletic. My friend Anne who's Aussie will not like to see this.Always bragging about how healthy compared to U.S.

[pookie]

Casi I am wondering how many of the 22,000 were overweight when the survey was done. 20 million people live here and I bet 62% of 20 mil are not overweight.

[happytraveller]

I think it really depends where you go. I was waiting with my hubby in front of a supermarked and we watched people going in and out and I kid you not, about every second person we saw was seriously obese. That is in a country town. In Brisbane we didn't see many obese people at all.

[bixaorellana]

As Americans have long had the reputation of being overweight, you have to wonder if there is a correlation between countries built on immigration and eating habits. America was seen as the land of abundance and promise, with people who struggled back in the old country finally getting enough to eat. Australia was another "promised land", with opportunities for the immigrant. Has that affected the eating habits of the two countries? Also, diet would change with the new country. A diet which had become perfectly tailored to certain national physical types might not be the norm somewhere else. Witness the shocking incidence of obesity and diet-related problems among people of Hispanic descent in the US.

[lagatta]

People of Mexican and Central American descent are as much if not more of Aboriginal (First Nations, Native American) descent as Hispanic. Native people here have the same dire problems of severe obesity and diet-related problems. If you look at pictures from a few generations back, they were about the most attractive, fit set of people you could imagine (witness the idealisation by early-Modern Europeans, who weren't generally overweight but had a lot of other dietary deficiencies.

In the Australian case I also suspect suburban sprawl is a culprit. With their climate, people could be active all year round, as long as they stay out of the lethal afternoon sun in the summertime (the reason for the siesta), and work early and late. But sprawl means people drive everywhere, even in enviable climates.

[komsomol]

Lots of Greek, Lebanese and Italian immigrants over there. No surprise.

[lagatta]

Huh?

[Deleted]

Maybe their food is more appetizing than the traditional English inspired fare? Overeating?