Variables independently associated with self-reported obesity in the European Union

Abstract

Objective: The rapid increase in obesity rates over recent years suggest that cultural and societal influences are affecting the adjustment in the energy balance equation in addition to other physiopathological or genetic determinants. Therefore, a pan-EU study was carried out to explore the influence of sociodemographic factors as well as some attitudes (smoking and exercise) on the prevalence of obesity in the adult population of all 15 member states of the EU. Design: Overall, a sample of 15 239 individuals aged 15 years and upwards in the EU completed the questionnaire. Subject selection was quota-controlled to make the sample nationally representative following a multistage stratified cluster sampling. Self-reported height and weight were used to calculate body mass index (BMI). Results: From the EU average results, it can be seen that only about half of the EU population (48%) is within the normal weight range, while the obesity (BMI у30 kg m −2 ) prevalence was about 10% in the EU and the overweight prevalence was 36.6% and 25.6% among men and women, respectively. UK subjects had the highest prevalence of obesity (12%), while Italians, French and Swedes had the lowest levels of obesity (about 7%). Concerning age and social class interactions, logistic regression analysis showed that high social class and younger individuals in all groups had a lower odds ratio for obesity prevalence. People with a higher level of education are less likely to be obese, while the interaction between educational levels and obesity was different for men and women. A low participation in various leisure-time physical activities, the lack of interest (precontemplation) in being involved in exercise/physical activity and the increasing number of hours sitting down at work appear to be predictors of obesity. Single individuals were less prone to become obese than couples or widowed/divorced people. Finally, smoking status was statistically linked to the prevalence of obesity, since non-smokers or ex-smokers for more than 1 year presented a higher tendency for a BMI Ͼ30. Conclusions: This survey confirms that a priority area for health intervention aimed at preventing the development of obesity should be to increase levels of physical activity, although the approach will depend on the population, especially with respect to educational and socioeconomic aspects.

Overweight and obesity in Italian adults 2004, and an overview of trends since 1983

“…Our estimates of overweight and obese subjects are in broad agreement with a survey conducted in 2003 on more than Overweight and obesity in Italy S Gallus et al confirm the findings from a survey including more than 15 000 adults from the 15 countries of the former European Union (Martinez et al, 1999), showing that Italy, with France and Luxembourg, had the lowest prevalence of overweight or obese adults (37% as compared to an average of 41% for the European Union) (Martinez et al, 1999). Several other surveys from European countries confirmed the relatively favourable situation in Italy in terms of obesity.…”

“…As it was shown in several developed countries, including Western European countries (Seidell and Flegal, 1997;Sundquist and Johansson, 1998;Martinez et al, 1999;Sarlio-Lahteenkorva and Lahelma, 1999;Aranceta et al, 2001;Tur et al, 2005), the USA (Freedman et al, 2002), but even in the developing world with a comparatively high gross domestic product (Sibai et al, 2003;Monteiro et al, 2004), prevalence of overweight and obesity was inversely associated with levels of education. Therefore, in Italy, lowereducated categories have an unfavourable pattern not only in terms of smoking prevalence (Gallus et al, 2006), but also in terms of obesity.…”

“…Moreover, we found low prevalence of overweight and obesity in divorced/separated subjects and high prevalence in widowed ones for both sexes. However, in a study from the EU, after allowance for age and sex, no significant differences in terms of overweight and obesity were shown for both sexes combined in relation to marital status (Martinez et al, 1999).…”

“…It is known that subjects tend to underestimate weight and to overestimate height (Niedhammer et al, 2000;Spencer et al, 2002;Avila-Funes et al, 2004). However, adding up the mean discrepancies between self-reported and measured weight and height found in one study from France (Niedhammer et al, 2000), whose population is similar to the Italian one in terms of BMI (Martinez et al, 1999), the overall prevalence of subjects with a BMI X25 kg/m 2 would be 43.4%, still considerably lower than the prediction of 59% in 2006 in Italy (Anonymous, 2002).…”

The predictive value of different socio-economic indicators for overweight in nine European countries

“…A study that used a large sample of EU citizens also revealed educational level to have a stronger association with obesity than surrogate measures of occupational class (8) .…”