Obesity is on the rise in Croatia

According to the latest research, around sixty percent of Croatians are overweight or obese.

More worrying than the fact that adults are getting fatter is a significant increase in the number of overweight or obese children. The current rate is 35%, which is a 15% increase from a decade ago, warned the president of the Croatian Obesity Society, Davor Štimac at a conference marking the national Overweight Awareness Day.

The main reason people are overweight today is their lifestyle, which is different than what it was 30 years ago. Being overweight has to do with eating too much food and calories coupled with a lack of physical activity, which is why the number of overweight and obese people is rising rapidly,” Štimac said.

Excessive weight poses the biggest threat to public health when it comes to children and young people, Štimac says, adding that more community engagement and education was needed to combat the problem. Unhealthy eating and a sedentary lifestyle in children is more common than it used to be. Children spend more time indoors, in front of screens than playing outside. They also consume lots of convenient but unhealthy food. These are factors that contribute to excess weigh in young people, Štimac says.

Being overweight is the underlying factor in many diseases like diabetes and hypertension, joint ailments and malignant illnesses, which is why it directly affects life expectancy. The health care system spends around 4 billion kunas per year on treating diabetes alone.

"Overweight people are much more expensive for the health care system because the chance of them falling ill is much higher than for a person who is not overweight,” he says.

According to data from the Croatian Public Health Bureau, in Croatia and Europe, more than half of the population that is over 18 is overweight (57.4%) and 18% of that group is considered obese. Men are significantly more overweight than women, 20.8%, compared to 16.8% of women. Data from 2015 also indicate that 34.9% of children in Croatia are overweight, with 14% of that group being obese. Again, more of them are boys than girls.