Overweight and obesity in Europe—BMI statistics. Source: Eurostat, CC BY 4.0
Finns continue to gain weight, and there is no sign of a reversal.
From a European perspective, obesity has also been rapid in recent years: in 2014, Finns were the 15th fattest nation in Europe, but less than ten years later, in 2022, the Finns’ ranking rose to third.
The data comes from Eurostat statistics, which examine the proportion of people in the population with a body mass index of 25 or more.
The number of obese adults has doubled since 1980.
“This is a really big public health and economic problem. There are 1.2 million adults in Finland with a body mass index of over 30 and an average of 25 kilograms of excess weight,” says physician, Professor Pertti Mustajoki.
Mustajoki is a specialist in hormone and metabolic diseases who has studied obesity and its causes.
Overweight, Diseases, Economy
Mustajoki lists that there are 1.2 million people in Finland with fatty liver disease, 800,000 who suffer from nocturnal respiratory arrest and 500,000 people with type 2 diabetes, the majority of whom have the disease caused by obesity. Obesity also increases asthma, coronary heart disease and several types of cancer.
Diseases cost the Finnish healthcare system 3.5 billion euros annually. According to Mustajoki, this is not an estimate, but researchers have been able to calculate it from healthcare registry data.
This alone should be a matter of concern for decision-makers in society.
“Nothing has been done,” states Mustajoki.
“Every year forward at the current rate means more sick people.”
Unhealthy Food Is The Main Culprit
Mustajoki emphasises that the cause of obesity is unequivocally unhealthy food.
“The increase in consumption of unhealthy foods explains the population’s obesity.”
In recent decades, the use of hamburgers, chips, sweets and sugary drinks has increased.
“Highly processed products with many times the calories of regular Finnish food. In addition to excessive calories, they often contain too much salt and few vitamins.”
Ways To Turn The Tide
Mustajoki is calling for society to take action to reverse the trend. In his opinion, an effective way would be to tighten food taxation.
In practice, this would mean expanded taxation of sugar products, which would raise the price of sweets, biscuits, sugary cereals and sugary drinks.
“That would certainly be the first step in the right direction,” emphasises Mustajoki.
The value-added tax on sweets was supposed to increase this year, but the government suspended the initiative under pressure from the industry. The tax increase on soft drinks is still under consideration.
Many other experts have also called for tax increases.
In addition, Mustajoki believes that the marketing of unhealthy foods, especially to children, should be banned. The ban is already in force in many European countries.
Change Is Possible
In order to save public health, urgent action is now needed – perhaps a new North Karelia project.
The successful project was launched in the 1970s and its idea was to reduce the use of fat and salt, and at the same time, of course, reduce heart mortality.
Mustajoki remembers how the food industry tried to put a brake on the North Karelia project. Despite the opposition, the development turned around quite quickly.
Low-fat milk began to be produced and butter was replaced by products with softer fat.
So the change took place in industry.
If taxation affects consumption, the industry will have to follow suit and start producing healthy products.
“Maybe in ten years, healthy candies will already be produced,” hopes Mustajoki.
Source: Yle (in Finnish)
Read more on the topic:
- Overweight and obesity – BMI statistics / Eurostat