Obesity in Sweden and the UK
I stumbled across this story in The Local story that charts a rise of obesity among young men in Sweden – as high as 1 in 20, or 5%. Apparently it’s putting pressure on Swedish healthcare. Well, compare that to the NHS stats – see this link, and then look at page 10 of the PDF. 25% of UK males age 25-34 are classed as obese. As far as I can tell the definitions of obesity are the same. So, sorry, Sweden does not have much of a problem to deal with.
The definitions may be the same, but is the reporting different in the 2 countries? I understand that obesity in the UK is based on height/weight measurements, whereas Swedish figures are self-reported. I don’t know many young men who would willingly describe themselves as obese 🙂
Hey this is great post and is insightful. I wrote my dissertation on the prevalence of obesity in children in the UK and the correlation to this with the underprovision of school sport.
In the UK have pushed school sport aside in favour of numeracy and literacy since 1998 and in my opinion this is having and is likelly to have dire consequences on this and the next generations health if we do not start looking at reforms soon.
Olly