The US usually takes the flak for being an overweight nation, but it turns
out that Europeans have nothing to be complacent about. A study by Wieland Kiess
of the University of Leipzig suggests that half of all Germans are overweight,
while a fifth are “pathologically obese”—fat enough to endanger their
health. Other Europeans are not much better. Obesity is “the prime pathological
risk factor today”, says Kiess. At a meeting in Leipzig last week, researchers
discussed ways to diagnose the onset of obesity in childhood so as to prevent an
increased risk of kidney and circulatory disease and diabetes in later life.
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