Krakow........

[flip_flop]

I have just come back from a long weekend in Krakow - utterly fantastic place, will definitely be going back - and the thing that struck me was that all the men and women there seem to take a pride in their appearance and are not fat.

In addition to Krakow I have been to Prague, Budapest, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Riga, Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam amongst others and again, all the women and men seem to take pride in their appearance and are not fat.

If you walk down any High Street in the UK you will see loads of fat men and women who don't appear to give a tinker's cuss what they look like.

My question is, in Europe, is obesity a British 'disease'?

[Booldawg]

No fat Germans? Maybe they were all on holiday in the Canaries.

[jake-the-peg]

Not especially - We are at the top of the European leader board by this data
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/05/06/global-obesity-fatness-by-country/

But only by 1%

Australia and NZ come running up behind - not countries you normally associate with Obesity.

Of course that data is taking obesity with a BMI over 30

On that basis I'm obese! ( I must be one on the fittest obese people about)

If instead you look at what the average BMI is rather than the number of people over a limit you get a slightly different story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6148456.stm

Now we are 10'th in the league

So it seems that Britain is more a nation of people who really could stand to lose a few pounds overall but with fewer grossly obese people

[New Judge]

Another flaw in your study, flip_flop, may be due to the areas of the cities you visited.

If you go to the “touristy” areas of London you will probably not encounter too many scruffy fat British people. This is because, despite many of them having free travel ("to enable them to take advantage of the many cultural and educational facilities the city has to offer" - so said former Mayor Ken Livingstone as he extended the free travel scheme in 2005) few of them visit central London, preferring instead to remain in their bolt holes eating MacDonalds and doner kebabs whilst watching Trisha Goddard and Jeremy Kyle. The Tate Modern and the Victoria & Albert Museum are not for them.

So I imagine it is the same in the excellent European cities you have visited. If you ventured out from the centre to their equivalent of, say, Croydon or Tottenham I expect you would encounter some less well turned out souls.

The big difference in my experience is more to do with the cities themselves than the people. London is disgraceful. It is dirty; with a few notable exceptions its modern architecture is appalling; its transport system is outrageously expensive and falls over at the drop of a hat. Much of it looks as if it is waiting to be compulsorily purchased.

Never mind. Now that Europe is effectively one nation perhaps some of the good habits of our European partners (and some of the £130bn a year it costs to run the EU) will rub off our way. But I won’t hold my breath.

[R1Geezer]

Don't be a titfer tat! "I've been to Poland and there all wonderful, na na nana na", welll fcuk off there then if it's so wonderful. Right so there are only scruffy urchins and fat people in Britain right oh! Well I've been all over Europe and there are lard ar5ses everywhere as well as people looking like a sack if sh1te. Still never miss a chance to slag off the Brits eh?

[jake-the-peg]

Maybe London needs to be European city of culture. By all accounts it did wonders for Glasgow

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2375339.stm

[flip_flop]

Not the Brits as a whole Geezer, just the porkers.

[BertiWooster]

New Judge

Isn't the Tate Modern as uninteresting as watching Jeremy Kyle ?

[keyplus90]

Not only people, even pets are over weight here. My mother in law is always woried about rats. I told her not to feed all that tuna, liver, this, that stuff to her cat who obviously is over weight. As I am sure he is neither fit enough to catch a rat nor really bothered about it.