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In every country in the developed world, waistlines are expanding as prosper

游客2024-08-18  9
问题     In every country in the developed world, waistlines are expanding as prosperity grows. A rough guide to national income can be obtained from the average dress or trouser size.
    In Europe, obesity has increased by 10 to 40 percent in most countries over the past decade and similar increases have been seen in the Unite States, Australia and the Far East. Figures presented at the International Congress on Obesity in Paris demonstrate that obesity is a global epidemic.
    However, as a table of the fattest and thinnest nations shows, the proportion of the population who are obese varies widely across the globe from the diminutive Chinese to the bulky Samoans. Obesity is not merely a reflection of the calories on a plate. It is influenced by genes, culture, physical activity and social attitudes.
    In Britain, 15 percent of men and 16. 5 percent of women are classified as obese, more than twice the proportion in 1998, when the equivalent figures were 6 percent of men and 8 percent of women. More than one-third of women and almost half of men are considered overweight. Yet as a nation, we are eating no more than we did two decades ago. The expanding British waistline is linked to a decline in physical activity. More cars and video recorders have meant more flab.
    In China, a largely rural lifestyle which makes heavy physical demands combined with a low-fat, rice-based diet keeps the population trim. In the US, where people commute to offices in air-conditioned cars and only break into a sweat when the pizza delivery is late, average seat sizes have increased.
    Cultural factors also play a part. In Samoa and neighbouring islands is the Pacific, obesity has long been regarded as symbol of high status and prosperity and is seen as attractive as a result. In recent years, there have been signs that these traditional notions are changing as more Westernised ideas of an attractive body size take hold.
    Despite the enormous international range in rates of obesity, only about 20 percent of differences in body shape can be attributed in genes, according to Professor John Garrow, editor of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
    " If it were the case that the Chinese and Japanese had something in their genes that kept them thin, they wouldn’t become taller and fatter when they migrated to US, but migration studies show that they do," says Professor Garrow.

    " Human beings now live to 70 or 80 when they were designed to live to 20 or 30 from subsistence agriculture when scratching a living was pretty difficult. Now we are living to a staggering age of food with food available 24 hours a day, it is surprising that we are not all obese. "
    Estimates by the World Health Organisation’s task force on obesity suggest that this is not mere fantasy. By 2007, there were around 26 million obese adults in the US. If the present trend continues, the entire population will be obese in 35 years unless Americans can be persuaded to curb their appetites.
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