Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Health, Latvia, Society
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Thursday, 18.04.2024, 03:31
Eurostat: Latvia has 2nd highest proportion of overweight or obese adults in EU
Malta, where 26% of the adult population are either
overweight or obese, is the only EU member states with even higher proportion
of overweight or obese people than Latvia, the statistics for 2014 show.
Hungary is the country with the third highest proportion of
overweight or obese people (21.2%), followed by Estonia (20.4%), Great Britain
(20.1%), Czech Republic (19.3%), Slovenia (19.2%), Croatia (18.7%), Finland
(18.3%) and Lithuania (17.3%).
For both women and men aged 18 years and over, the lowest
proportions of the population considered to be obese or overweight were
recorded in Romania (9.4%), Italy (10.7%), Netherlands (13.3%), as well as
Belgium and Sweden (14% in both countries).
Across the EU, 15.9% of adults have problems with excessive
weight, including 16.1% of men and 15.7% of women. The problem plagues 5.7% of
the bloc's young population 22.1% of the elderly.
Eurostat's data does not include statistics on Ireland.
According to the methodology used by Eurostat people whose
body mass index (a measure of a person’s weight relative to their height)
exceeds 30 points is considered obese. A BMI in the range of 25-30 is
considered to be the pre-obesity stage, and people whose BMI exceeds 25 points
are seen as overweight. Body mass in the range of 18.5-25 points is considered
to be within the norm.