From Your Health Journal…..”A very interesting article from a publication called Wales Online by Simon Gaskell entitled The Welsh Communities Where More Than 60% Are Overweight. This web site has discussed recently how obesity is on the rise all over the world, yet the United States is being labeled as the fat capital of the world – even though I have produced articles from Mexico, Britain, Australia, Canada, and other countries stating they have an obesity epidemic. Now, a similar report out of Wales, which shocking statistics have shown the fattest parts of Wales have populations where nearly a third of people are clinically obese and more than 60% are overweight. Please visit the Wales Online web site (link provided below) to read the complete article.”

From the article…..

Shocking statistics have shown the fattest parts of Wales have populations where nearly a third of people are clinically obese and more than 60% are overweight.

Wales’ bulging waistlines are getting bigger and are evidenced by a plan revealed by health boards this week to give patients more bariatric treatment – gastric band-style surgery – to cope with the problem.

Worried health experts have branded Wales’ obesity problem “criminal”.

According to a wide-ranging health study, Merthyr Tydfil is Wales’ fattest town with 68% of adult men and 59% of adult women tipping the scales at more than they should.

Meanwhile, a whopping 28% of Merthyr’s adult population is clinically obese – classed as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater – compared to the Wales-wide average of 22%.

Elsewhere more than 60% of people in Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen and Newport are also classed as overweight.

The obesity epidemic is said to make Wales the fattest nation in the UK and put us just behind world leader the US.

It comes after the shocking case of Aberdare teen Georgia Davis who was cut out of her own home last May in an eight-hour operation involving at least 40 firefighters, engineers and medics after she became too big to get out of her door. Doctors have since restricted Georgia to a 1,500 calorie-a-day diet – down from 13,000 – and as a result her weight has dropped from 52st to 43st.

But in contrast to Georgia’s reported weight loss, when WalesOnline visited Wales’ “fattest town” Merthyr this week, people said the area’s obesity woes were getting worse.

Jake Toomey, 18, said: “It’s true. There are a lot of people who are overweight.

“I think it’s a bad thing for health things like that, isn’t it?”

In the town’s main high street, there are a number of kebab shops and chinese buffets competing for business.

Meanwhile temptation isn’t far away for those trying to work off the pounds at the Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Centre – with a McDonald’s fast food restaurant just a stone’s throw away.

Many people claimed the ubiquity and convenience of takeaways in Merthyr was partly to blame for people being overweight.

Lewis Richardson, 18, said: “There are loads of takeaways which are people’s first option rather than go to the supermarket and make their own stuff.

“They can’t afford to – if you don’t get a job, you can’t get a car and go to Tesco and get stuff so it’s not great.”

To read the full article…..Click here