Is Germany Turning Into an XXL Country?

The German army believes it risks being lumbered with a generation of under-performing heavyweights due to the dramatic overall rise in obesity in the country, according to the current issue of newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

Armed Forces doctor Admiral Karsten Ocker told Der Spiegel he feared Germany could be on course to becoming "an XXL nation."

The number of joint and back injuries is rising because soldiers are simply too fat to carry out the physical tasks expected of them, the report said.

In Germany one young person in three is now classed as obese, more than half of adolescents aged 16 to 18 do no sport and a quarter of 15-year-olds spend more than four hours a day in front of the television.

Senior army general Wolfgang Schneiderhan is now demanding that sport be made one of the central elements of military training, the magazine said.