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Europe's Gluttony Olympics: Fattest, Laziest, Drunkest
Forget Citius, Altius, Fortius ("Faster, Higher, Stronger"), the real Olympic challenge among Europe's nations is Pinguissimam, Ignavissumi, Bibe Maxime (Fattest, Laziest, Drunkest). As WaPo notes, there's nothing like tales of butter-eating, wine-guzzling, yet somehow-still thin Europeans to add to American angst over holiday calories and upcoming resolutions, but while overall, Europeans are fairly healthy, a recently-released report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (below) found that the prevalence of diseases such as diabetes and asthma has also increased — in part because of better diagnosis, but also thanks to underlying causes such as drinking, smoking and eating fattening foods. Here’s a look at which Europeans are most obese, most inactive and drink most (no, it's not the Brits):
Via The Washington Post:
Alcohol:
Despite common perceptions that the French sip wine all day or that Scandinavians muddle through the long winters with the aid of aquavit, Luxembourg actually tops the list of Europe’s alcohol consumers, with nearly 15.3 liters bought per capita annually — a 12 percent increase since 1980. (The OECD points out, however, that foreigners actually purchase much of that because of Luxembourg’s lower-than-average alcohol taxes.) Not counting Luxembourg, Latvia and Romania top the charts of alcohol consumption among adults:
Meanwhile, the supposed dolce vita of the Italians has become more temperate. They’ve reduced their alcohol consumption by nearly 60 percent since 1980, to a modest 6.9 liters.
And even though higher taxes and more rigid advertising laws have caused alcohol consumption in the E.U. to decline by 15 percent since 1980, the region still has the highest level of alcohol consumption in the world, and alcohol is the third leading risk factor for disease there, after tobacco and high blood pressure.
The problem is that as parts of Europe sober up, other countries have been drinking more — and new types — of alcohol:
There has been a degree of convergence in drinking habits across the European Union, with wine consumption increasing in many traditional beer-drinking countries and vice versa.
Obesity:
The rate of obesity has doubled over the past 20 years in the E.U., to 17 percent, making it a “major public health concern,” the authors write. Hungarians are the most obese people in the E.U., at 28.5 percent, closely followed by Britain.
Hungary’s neighbors, the Romanians, are the most svelte:
The authors note the use of taxes on fat and sugar — such as those recently passed in Finland, France and Hungary — as potential solutions. However, one such measure in Denmark was recently repealed after it was found to have too detrimental of an impact on consumers and businesses.
Physical activity:
Overall, only one in five children in the E.U. member states say they exercise regularly. The study didn’t measure physical activity among adults, but if sedentary children become pudgy grown-ups, the Italians are in trouble. Just 7 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys there reported daily physical activity, while the Austrians were most active:
Source: Washington Post
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It looks like Hungary has lived up to its name.
Does this include the amount of booze purchased in watering holes?
Unfortunately, the conclusion for Luxembourg is not correct, as correctly pointed out in the article.
The population of Luxembourg does not drink that much more alcohol than its neighbours. That large number comes from the fact that Luxembourg has much lower TAX for alcoholic beverages than its immediate neighbouring countries. Being on the crossroads between Germany, France and Belgium, there's a massive economy here to sell gas, booze and cigarettes to the travellers passing through.
Hence those ridiculously high numbers, if you also take into consideration that the total population of Luxembourg is just half a million.
If they drank a little more they could become Thirstary...
Turkey had better watch out...
Yeah, sitting around, on their ottomans.
Consuming too much greece (toxic debt) is clearly bad for one's (financial) health.
PS: Speaking of Greece, do we REALLY still have to continue indulging this nonsense about "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"? I've got news for you petulant Greeks: the country on your northern border IS Macedonia, all your childish, misguided nationalistic tantrums to the contrary notwithstanding. Get over yourselves.
Pah!
Next you'll be saying we should refer to Constantinople as 'Istanbul'.
You're talking about Byzantium, right?
DAMN! You beat me to it!
Graffiti spotted on the wall of the Finnish Club (of all places) in the suburb of Balmain, in Sydney, Australia, many years ago:
"FREE BYZANTIUM!!" [It was there for a LONG time. ;=)) ]
hahahahhahahahahahhah
Kinda makes "going Greek" into a double entendre.
Make that a double cheeseburger ;o)
In the 1980s Irish kids walked to school , now they have become Americans
The French drank much more wine............
The Irish drank in the pub rather the sadly at home before blowing their tiny brains out.
Its the euro
Its the most anti labour construct ever created.
And sadly the show is just starting...
In the 1980s Irish kids walked to school , now they have become Americans
______________________________
That is nailing it.
'Americanism' spreading around...
wine and olive oil; both in moderation with lots of omega rich spices, fruit and vegetables; something the northern countries do not tradition in.
As for the Euro it was not made to be a serf's ring per se; but it has become 'cos those banks have been let out of PAndora's box. The pox of pax americana construct to buy all that imported oil on credit, then to make i-pads cheap.
USd dollar reserve cut and pasted across europe; in hasty, no fiscal policy, maximum crony horsy political jockeying, bunga-bunga orgy plays.
WHat happened to Delor's magical Maastricht prudence ratios of debt/deficit moderation?
That < was the financial Rubicon they ALL crossed!
damn, I promised myself that I would not comment today... well...
"the euro as a serf ring" or "the euro as a destruction machine" goes always back to two things, one seen and one unseen
unseen: what would have happened in the last years without the euro?
A) either a currency grid like last time
OR
B) a "competitive devaluation" orgy
seen: C) the euro is being devalued slowly, and it's behaving like any hard currency (like gold, but not that hard) in the less profitable parts of the eurozone - which means the "periphery" is hurting more (though profitable business in the periphery is ok)
so C) is not that different from A) and the only thing I can ask is: would you have preferred B)?
And the answer to that depends from your financial and geographic position
Any City of London banker would have vastly preferred B), of course, and the FED too
well it is a shield to protect us while we die by a thousand cuts; as part of the great ship of first world depredation.
I'll grant u that!
Double post
Sadly not a double powers.
In honor of my central European genetic heritage I'm going to crack another beer.
Cheers!
Boy Italians don't eat ,don't drink ,and don't exercise. Wtf do they do ?
Not sure about the boys, but almost every Italian girl I know loves to fuck. Vigorously. With a big smile.
Not in Italy, they don't.
But you trade in dudes, so how would you know?
Talk with their hands ... a lot.
Know why Italian men got such big dorks?
They don't get presents for Christmas.
Why do Italians grow mustaches? So they look like their mother.
Why Italians wear so many chains around their necks? So they know where to stop shaving.
As an American Italian I will set your mind at ease. I eat, drink, and don't exercise.
So tell me Fonz ... Is your family like Ray Barone's? The only show I enjoy watching on TV.
It is to the extent that the only time my wife and my side of the family get along is when they are conspiring about me. My wife's family is russian. They live in South Jersey and outside of philly. When we go there they just yell in russian while I drink a beer and watch sports.
Jesus Christ I am Ray Romano......I never looked at it that way. This changes everything.
That makes two of us. That's why I find the show so funny. Sometimes when my wife is yelling at me I burst out laughing because she sounds like Ray's wife. That of course gets me in more trouble, but it's worth it.
If you laugh at a russian woman while she is yelling at you, you can actually see them visualizing killing you. I have slept with one eye open many a night.
Hilarious
The good thing would be that you have two Christmas to celebrate on both sides.
Russian Jew. My wifes grandmother was one of the real life characters in that movie "Defiance". Badass people. I respect them. I am drinking a glass of wine and staring at my "Channukah Bush" as we speak....and all along I thought it was a Christmas tree....
I can't stop laughing....sorry.
It's all about laughter bud.
I was deep into reading Margin of Safety from Seth Klarman but I can't now. This is quite humorous.
My matriarchal side is Lithuanian (close enuf for Russian) and Italian. Mrs K says that's why I wave my hands all over, argue with and threaten myself all the time.
"Threaten yourself"?? You sure you don't have some Albanian in the mix somewhere? Nothing in the world like watching an Albanian working him/herself into a frothing rage. Like Daffy Duck on PCP. "I'll kick my ass!! And slaughter your entire family!!"
At least do what makes sense, watch Juventus.
Tell everybody to "vaffanculo" a lot.
At least they did in my neighborhood.
Write nice statistics?
They smoke.
Romania seems solid. Drunk and thin.
I work with a Romanian. She is solid and thin, and smart, and well, solid.
Great...i remember reading the AsiaTimes back in the 1990s...always had nifty financial statistics and some more...like calories consumed by country. I always wished Germany, Russia and the USA would overtake the UAE and Belgium, but they never did.
The only europeans to drink me under the table were Bavarians .......
They take drink far too seriously......
Its like a sport to them......
Its not fun - its .........its SERIOUS
I am Bavarian, thanks for the compliment, I flushed and had a tear of emotion in my eye..
It means you did not drink with a russian
Lived there for a while hanging out mostly with climbers. They only half jokingly considered beer to be just a liquid form of bread, i.e. food.
Have one on me and fuck you.................................
Calling Heir Bloomberg, you're wanted back on the continent.
I think I'm going to go drink a gallon of "embalming fluid", these markets are DEAD...
Dead and buried Yen. It's like trying to trade a snail fight. Everything has been pinned down to such a tiny trading range.
The China HSBC services just game out worse then last months numbers, and the aud/GDP missed. The RBA lowered rates last night and the aud/usd goes bid. I didn't trade that head fake though.
The euro is up in the top of it's 4-5 month range on horseshit/
The economic calendar looks pretty well loaded for the next 18 hours or so. I'll keep my powder dry for later.
http://www.forexpros.com/economic-calendar/
I have no idea how you game it. The dollar weakens at the thought of spending cuts and tax hikes kicking in. If they agree to some BS deal and avoid spending cuts the dollar will strengthen when it should weaken. Gold has been weakening heading into QE4 even as the dollar weakens. The Euro is rising and periphery yields are dropping even as the eurozone implodes. I must think way too macro because I would not know which way to bet even if you gave me the answers to the test.
At times the hardest and best trade is to sit nervous and flat.
I don't trade anymore. I got some longs. It's just a lesson in futility at this point. I just collect PMs. I like holding my investment. I like being old school.
THE START.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIdjUTa9yU
THE FINISH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOs6RdO4H6A
You ain't seen fat until you go shopping in the San Fernando Valley. Hungary has nothing on SFV.
Any Wal-Mart will do.
Any coincidink that most of the least obese countries are self-reported?
Nah...
Another Conspiracy Theory tin foil hat idea of yours.
BTW, always best to put a couple of knobs on the tin foil hat to adjust the resonance around the 0.2 to 5.5 MHt range.....
There's an app for that...
That would interfere with the reception channel on my Orgone Accumulator.
Something of a Superman Creator! Even better than Energy Simulators - (I hear they turn your eyeballs into craters) . . . . . .
Definitely not a device for social integration though
The OECD ? The organisation of no tax is a bad tax unless it applies to us ? Fuck off.
The authors note the use of taxes on fat and sugar — such as those recently passed in Finland, France and Hungary — as potential solutions.
Solutions ?
This is what the organisation is supposed to be :
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, French: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, OCDE) is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries committed to democracy and the free-market economy,
Now that is a good joke !
Europeans live in the same la-la land Americans do: they have the better currencies because they are backed by the strongest militaries.
Same as it ever was.
The highest likker consumption is Luxembourg at 15 liters a year? Come on, that's like 500 ounces, a shot and a half a day. You call that drinking? Fugg me ded, I call that lunch.
If this is neat alcohol, then we're looking at 300ml per week, which really isn't a lot at all! A decent red contains about 15% alcohol, so that's the equivalent of about 2.8 700ml bottles per person per week.
Most colleagues get through two LARGE glasses EVERY End of Shift (just to "settle the nerves"!), so we're looking at 400ml per DAY = 2.4 litres per week (or 3 and 1/2 standard bottles) plus whatever we guzzle during our days off. Say the equivalent of 4 standard bottles per person, per week total, = 420mL total alcohol.
Welcome to the reality of front-line Australian Healthcare - the staff are all permanently sozzled (helps to reduce anxiety and stress levels - following OH&S Guidelines to promote a "Healthier sic. Working Environment" don't you know!)
A liter of wine has about 0.1 liters of alcohol, so 15 liters of alcohol corresponds to 150 liters (200 bottles) of wine a year, or 300 liters (600 pints) of beer a year. You are right. That really isn't all that much. Especially since young children are allowed to drink alcohol in Europe, and a per-capita measure averages over both drinking adults and non-drinking persons.
Notice that the US and Russia were not listed on the charts.
We begin well, sir. I distrust a man that says "when". If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. Kasper Gutman, The Maltese Falcon
But nobody can touch the fat fucking disgusting pig that is the average American
You mean this girl?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzpnEHgWQMU Rollin' in the Deep
i went to several schools growing up and there were typically 1-2 poor fugly people in each grade. Most of the kids were pretty, really. I don't know what happened. But it has more to do with what Americans are being provided to survive and grow than they as a people. Consumerism, self absorption and dull educational system which does not inspire curiosity and passion has left them with broken spirits and a loss of identity. Americans forget who they are. It's coming soo to a country you live it. It's a protocol: How to Take Over A Country Without Even Trying
I noticed Bulgaria ranked near the top on the "obesity" test - that said, their ranking was based on "self-reported" data...
I spent some time there about seven years ago...and I distinctly remember thinking that, for the most part (well, at least compared to the U.S.), the people there seemed to be pretty trim...
...not like in an unhealthy way at all - it just seemed like they used a fair amount of common sense/moderation in their diet/lifestyle.
I also remember being very surprised at how attractive the women were there in general...not that I was really expecting otherwise...I was just surprised/impressed.
I thought the same of Romania just north of Bulgaria about 6 years ago. Really hot women on the beach of Constanta. By the way you are looking good.
I see Poland is sobering up. Back before the Russians went home drinking pure alcohol was a national sport. Vodka drinking a distant second.