How Obese Is Your Country?

Health complications arising from obesity

Seeing as we have page views originating from Canada, United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, United Kingdom, Sweden, South Korea and Norway (as of December 17, 2010), I thought it might be interesting to post one studies' listing of countries and obesity rates.

The source for the following was Medical News Today.

Obesity rates by country (Source: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development):

• Japan 3%
• Korea 4%
• Switzerland 8%
• Italy 10%
• Norway 10%
• Sweden 10%
• France 11%
• Denmark 11%
• Netherlands 12%
• Austria 12%
• Poland 13%
• Israel 14%
• Belgium 14%
• Turkey 15%
• Portugal 15%
• Finland 16%
• OECD average 16%
• Germany 16%
• Slovenia 16%
• Slovak Rep. 17%
• Czech Rep. 17%
• Spain 17%
• Greece 18%
• Hungary 19%
• Luxembourg 20%
• Iceland 20%
• Chile 22%
• Ireland 23%
• Canada 24%
• UK 25%
• Australia 25%
• New Zealand 27%
• USA 28%
• Mexico 30%
Non-OECD countries:  

• India 1%
• Indonesia 1 %
• China 2%
• Brazil 14%
• Russian Fed. 17%
• Estonia 18%
• S. Africa 21%

A Body Mass Index of 25 or more is considered overweight.  When a person has a BMI of 30 or more, they are considered obese.  Now BMI is not a perfect gauge of what constitutes a perfect bodyweight.  One of its shortcomings is a failure to take into account muscular athletes. Nevertheless BMI is one of the most common yardsticks to benchmark a person's weight relative to their height.

Check your Body Mass Index here or get a PDF version here.  There is also an online BMI calculator.

I am 5'6" and around 144 lbs. which translates to a current BMI of 23 (December 17, 2010).

Victor