AUSTRALIANS are the worst sinners in the world, British researchers have decided.

In a study of 35 countries, Australians come up as the most likely to commit one of the biblical seven deadly sins.

An article in the February edition of Focus, a UK magazine produced by the BBC, states Australians rank first for envy and third for lust and gluttony.

The authors used a points system to determine which countries committed the seven deadly sins - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride - the most.

They measured a nation's tendency towards being sloths, for example, by looking at the number of days they took off work. When a country finished first in a category it was awarded 10 points. A second placing gathered nine points, and so on for all placings in the top 10.

The final tally deemed Australians the most "sin-prone", followed by people in the US, Canada, Finland and Spain.

Despite a documented love of taking sickies, sloth is the sin Australians are least likely to commit, with eight other countries considered lazier, the report shows.

Only six nationalities were considered more wrathful and three were more greedy or proud.

University of Adelaide Emeritus Professor Chilla Bulbeck, from the School of Social Sciences, said the results and criteria used to uncover them were questionable.

"Australians did well with the low ranking in the sloth category, but why not measure the length of the average working week, showing unpaid hours of work?

"The article also tends to focus on what men do or experience rather than women.

"Domestic violence is the most common assault experienced by women, but it's not factored into the wrath category."

James Cook University social demographer Dr Sue Bandaranaike said: "The US, Canada and Australia are the most obese countries in the world so when you see them finish in the gluttony section in that order, it's no surprise."

Topping each of the sin categories were South Korea (lust), the US (gluttony), Mexico (greed), Iceland (sloth and pride), South Africa (wrath) and Australia (envy).