Half of Germans Too Fat

According to the Federal Statistics Office, half of Germany's 83 million population is overweight. Citing results of a survey of 370,000 people, the office on Tuesday said that the so-called Body Mass Index of 49 percent of Germans exceeded ideal levels prescribed by the World Health Organization. Thirteen percent of the population fell within the WHO criteria for obese. "In all age groups, men were more often overweight than women," the statistics report said. Of those surveyed, former male smokers (70 percent) and married men (66 percent) were especially prone to carry around excessive weight. The percentage of women judged overweight hardly changed since the last study in 1999. Young women, especially those aged 18 or 19, were more likely than men to be underweight.