Anti-obesity campaign: The European Commission has launched a campaign with the food industry, consumer groups and health experts to reduce Europe's bulging waistlines and prevent an obesity epidemic of North American proportions.
Commissioner for health and consumer protection Markos Kyprianou said new figures showed that more than 200 million adults in the EU may be overweight or obese and that the number of overweight schoolchildren rose by 400,000 each year.
"Obesity is rising rapidly, and Europe's expanding waistline brings with it devastating consequences for public health and huge economic costs. Our continent is facing an obesity epidemic every bit as bad as the one in North America. I am particularly alarmed at the continued rise of overweight and obesity among schoolchildren," he said.
The European Platform for Action on Diet and Physical Activity, which met yesterday for the first time, brings together representatives of the food, catering and advertising industries, consumer groups and health campaigners, as well as politicians. Over the next few months it will propose action plans to promote healthier eating and encourage people to take more exercise.
Mr Kyprianou said the campaign would focus on voluntary measures as opposed to measures such as the banning of advertisements for unhealthy foods directed towards children. "The real test is whether the process of co-operation we are launching can deliver results," he said.
The initiative has identified five fields of action: consumer information, including labelling; education; physical activity; marketing and advertising; and composition of foods, availability of healthy options and portion sizes.
The commission has already proposed a new EU law to stop food producers from advertising as healthy or nutritionally valuable foods which contain too much fat, salt or sugar.
Mr Kyprianou warned that if voluntary measures did not succeed, the commission would consider using regulation to tackle Europe's obesity problem.
People are regarded as obese if their body mass index (BMI) is over 30. One's BMI can be calculated by dividing one's weight (in kilograms) by the square of one's height (in metres and centimetres). If the result of this calculation is below 20, one is regarded as being undernourished.