British girls are the fattest in Europe: Almost a third of females under the age of 20 in UK are overweight or obese, claims study



Study finds 29.2 per cent of girls under age of 20 are overwe ight or obese

Older women in Britain third fattest in Europe with 57 per cent overweight



Estimates from global study found 66.6 per cent of men in UK are fat

Report carried out by US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation



More than one in ten of the world's overweight people live in America, a larger amount than any other country, and almost the same as China and India combined

British girls are the fattest in Europe – almost a third are overweight or obese, says a study.

Girls under 20 top a league table of 22 nations in Western Europe, with 29.2 per cent being overweight and obese.



Of those, 8 per cent of the girls meet the clinical definition of obesity, having a Body Mass Index of 30 or above.

Older British women are also battling the pounds with 57 per cent classified as fat – third highest after Iceland and Malta.

Estimates from a global study for 2013 found 66.6 per cent of men in the UK are fat.



This places them fifth in the European league table.

An estimated 26 per cent of British boys under 20 are overweight and obese – placing them 10th.



The report from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, published in The Lancet, says there has been an increase in obese children in developed countries.

But the rise in adult obesity has slowed down.

‘In developed countries, peak prevalence of obesity is moving to younger ages,’ says the report.

‘Evidence of a slowdown in the rate of increase of overweight and obesity in the developed world provides some hope that the epidemic might have peaked in developed countries.’

But obesity remains a ‘major global health challenge,’ the report adds, with no national success stories reported over the past three decades.

The UK and Australia have seen large rises in obesity during this period. However, the US tops the global league table, containing 13 per cent of the world’s obese people.

Globally there are around 2billion overweight people, a third of the world's population, with every country seeing waistlines expand over the last 30 years

The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

John Newton, chief knowledge officer at the government agency Public Health England, said that the ‘worrying’ prevalence of obesity among British girls was partly due to peer pressure to eat fast food.