Canadians are among the world’s fattest

Today, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a study which found that Canadians are among the heaviest in the western world. In a survey of 33 members of OECD, only Americans, Mexicans, Brits, Australians and New Zealanders were fatter than Canadians. The study found that sixty per cent of Canadian adults are overweight and one in four are obese. Canadian men are heaver than women, 66 per cent of men are overweight compared to 54 per cent of women. The OECD average is 50 per cent of the population is overweight. Japan has the thinnest population, only 24 per cent are overweight and three per cent are obese. One piece of good news is that Canadians aren’t expected to get much fatter. The proportion of overweight people is expected to increase by five per cent, a relatively minor increase compared to Americans. "Canada is doing well in terms of the rate of increase of obesity," said report author Franco Sassi, the OECD’s senior health economist, reported the Vancouver Sun. "But it is clearly one of the countries where obesity is the highest, so there is a lot of work to do to bring the rates down."

Vancouver Sun