More than half of the EU's adult population (52%) is overweight or obese, according to statistics from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with Hungary and the United Kingdom having the highest rates.
At a higher age, obesity is one of the main risk factors causing non-communicable diseases, including type-2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular- and respiratory diseases.
So with more people expected to become obese in Europe, is there anything the EU do to reverse the trend?
Professor James O. Hill, who recently participated to the European Congress for Obesity 2013, told EurActiv in an interview that Europe could start dealing with the issue with a commitment to research.
"At the end of the day, we got to base our interventions on good science and we need a lot more good science surrounding behaviour change, prevention and treatment," Hill said.
But the EU should bring everybody together on this, the professor said, in particularly academic experts, saying "we need people from the governments and people from the industry".
"There are a lot of industries that make money from people being sedentary, selling you big screen TVs, automobiles and everything else. I think we have to engage them, not to blame them, but to be part of the solution," Hill stated.
He said it is possible to develop the best programme possible via academics, but it would also need backing from various private sector industries.
"We need them to market healthy lifestyles and products to the population."
Learning from Americans
The eurozone debt crisis has forced some governments to drastically cut their public health budgets in an effort to contain deficits, especially in the area of prevention. However, this is not the way forward, Hill stressed.
"I think it’s just the wrong way to go about it. You see that in the US we waited until people started experiencing all these consequences of obesity and then we paid for their healthcare when in fact if we had invested money in keeping them healthy, they wouldn’t get these conditions and it would save us a lot of money," the American expert said.
Hill added that at some point the Western world has to wake up and realise, the way to handle this issue is to work on keeping people healthy and not letting them get obese in the first place.
"The most important thing you can learn from us [Americans] is what not to do. First of all, food restriction does not work. We have been promoting food restrictions for decades. It does not work. People will skip their food intake, they get hungry and begin eating again. So food restriction is not a long-term solution," the professor said.
How to lose weight?
There are a lot of easy ways and bookstore diets that can make people lose weight, but the real issue is keeping the weight loss. Here, exercise becomes crucial.
"You don’t need to exercise to lose weight. You can lose a lot of weight pretty easily with absolutely no exercise. But if you want to keep weight off, exercise becomes the key factor in terms of doing that," Hill said.
At the same time people should eat smarter instead of eating less. People who are successful at keeping a lower weight watch what they eat, use sweeteners instead of sugar, and look for low-fat options.
They are also consistent and get their exercise every day, pay attention to their diet every day, eat breakfast and report their progress periodically.
People find this much more achievable because they can make small changes successfully and over time, a lot of small changes can add up to a significant difference.
