Child obesity: Is the Mediterranean diet to blame?
6222 Mins Read
According to new data from the World Health Organization, childhood obesity rates in the Mediterranean region are among the highest in the world.
The new WHO report, presented this week at the European Congress on Obesity in Vienna, indicated that of 34 countries in the European region, the countries of Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, San Marino and Spain had the highest rates of childhood obesity.
In these countries, approximately one in five boys was obese (18% to 21% of boys). Rates of obesity among girls were only slightly lower.
Childhood obesity was over twice as prevalent in southern European countries than in northern European countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Norway, where rates of obesity in boys and girls ranged between 5% and 9%, according to the report.
The latest data come from the WHO Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative, which has tracked obesity and overweight prevalence among European children ages 6 to 9 for the past 10 years. For the new report, height and weight measurements of approximately 250,000 children from 34 countries were collected between 2015 and 2017.
Dr. João Breda, head of the WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, which authored the report, wrote “We believe it is due to the loss of the traditional Mediterranean diet patterns in the south [and] to the increased intake of sugars and energy dense foods combined with particularly low levels of physical activity.”
