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Do their derrières look big? Battle of the bulge is all in the French mind

(The Independent 24/04/2009)

The typical French woman is slim and thinks that she is fat. The typical British woman is plump but is convinced that she is thin. A French survey has charted wide discrepancies in the average weight of men and women in different European countries. The survey also finds that attitudes to weight - especially women's attitudes - vary enormously from one country to another.

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If hostile jibes about being fat worked we'd all be thin

(Telegraph 07/04/2009)

Would you consider yourself to be: a) overweight or b) relatively svelte? It's a tough one, isn't it? Far too complex for the layman, which is why you'll need to visit your GP. That's the Government's brilliant new strategy for fighting the battle of the bulge - they're going to make doctors carry out "fat tests" on their patients.

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Hostility linked to obesity in men

(World health - EU Monitor 28/02/2009)

Hostile men may pack on more pounds over time than their less hostile, more laid-back peers, new research shows. The more hostile a man's personality, the more his body mass index (BMI) increased over the following two decades, Dr. Hermann Nabi and his colleagues found. The researchers looked at data on 6,484 men and women participating in a UK study of socioeconomic status and health.

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Fat nation: Three out of four UK adults are overweight

(Daily Mail 06/10/2008)

At least 75 per cent of UK adults are carrying too much fat an expert said today, even though official estimates put the figure at 66 per cent. Dr Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, argues that body mass index (BMI) fails to distinguish between lean mass and body fat and so people in the "normal" range may still be carrying too much weight.

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