Advice sought on reducing EU waistlines

Brussels has begun a three-month consultation on how best to tackle Europe’s growing obesity problem.

The European Commission is asking national governments, health NGOs, consumer groups and businesses for their input on how healthy eating and physical activity can best be promoted.

“The commission has been asked to coordinate efforts to tackle obesity by European health ministers,” a commission spokesman said.

“This is a European problem which requires a Europe-wide solution. We want to make sure that our efforts are not undermined by individual member states.”

Obesity and related illnesses such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes and cancer are becoming an increasing burden on European health services.

Around 14 million Europeans are currently classified as obese – of whom more than three million are children – and the figures, like European waistlines, are continuing to grow.

Obesity growth rates are as high as 40 per cent in some EU countries, while the number of children suffering from the disease is rising by around 400,000 a year.

The economic burden on Europe is also rising, with the cost of obesity and related illness estimated at around seven per cent of national EU health budgets.

The commission is keen to consult on a number of areas, in particular the thorny issue whether more should be done to regulate the marketing of food.

“The document raises questions such as whether self-regulation is an adequate tool for limiting the advertising and marketing of foods high in fat, sugar and salt,” the spokesman said.

“And what should happen, if anything, if such regulation were to fail?”

But any move towards tougher advertising regulations is likely to be opposed by the food industry, which argues that consumers have the choice of what to eat.

Food manufacturers believe that better education is the key to improving healthy eating, and the commission’s paper will also look at this issue in depth.

Brussels also wants advice on tackling issues such as improving the nutritional quality of school meals and how physical activities can best be built in to consumers’ daily routines.

The EU has stepped up its efforts to tackle obesity in recent months with the creation in March 2005 of the European Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.

The platform was designed to coordinate voluntary efforts to improve consumer health across the EU, and is viewed by the commission as “the most promising means of non-legislative action” to reduce obesity levels.

Greece is Europe’s fattest country, with 78.6 per cent of men and 74.7 per cent of women considered either overweight or obese, according to the International Obesity Task Force.

Germans, Cypriots and Czechs also feature heavily among Europe’s obese, while the French, Italians and Danes are the least likely to suffer from the disease.

• Previous article
• Next article