We Eat Healthily And Exercise A Lot, Say America's Obese
02 Aug 2006
According to a new survey of 11,000 people carried out by Thomson Medstat, over three-quarters of obese Americans claim they have healthy diets. 40% of obese people in the USA say they do vigorous exercise three times a week or more.
The researchers in this study wondered how many of the USA's obese citizens really understood what is meant by a healthy diet and regular, vigorous physical activity.
When asked about their snacking habits, 28% of obese people said they snack two or more times a day, compared to 24% of people of normal weight.
The survey did not include one vital question. It did not ask people how much they ate.
One third of all American adults are obese, just over two-thirds are overweight.
About 3,000 of the 11,000 in the survey were obese or morbidly obese, 4,200 others were overweight, 3,800 were of normal weight, 200 were underweight.
If what the respondents said was really the truth, the lifestyles of obese and people or normal weight do not seem to be all that different: Do you read nutritional labels on food packages?
Obese people - 19% do
Normal weight people - 24% do
Do you eat out at restaurant three or more times a week?
Obese people - 29% do
Normal Weight people - 25% do
How often to you eat everything that is on your plate?
Obese people - 41%
Normal weight people - 31%
I have just come back from ten days in England followed by four days in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Although English people seem to be getting fatter, I did notice many more overweight and obese people in Atlanta. What struck me the most was that while you drive through English towns and cities you see lots of people walking on the sidewalk, in Atlanta most of them were empty while the roads were full of cars. Could one extrapolate from that that Americans are less physically active?
Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
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