Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

World Heart Federation obesity warning
Summary: The World Heart Federation is warning that obesity will overtake tobacco smoking as the
biggest cause of heart disease unless the current trend of unhealthy lifestyles stops. At least a billion
people across the globe are now extremely overweight, putting a massive strain on the world wide
healthcare systems.
Obesity, which can cause heart disease, strokes and diabetes is on the increase across the globe.
According to the World Heart Federation, an estimated twenty-two million children under five years
old are now severely overweight. Nearly one in three children in the United States between the ages of
five and fourteen is obese, compared to one in six, thirty years ago.
But obesity is not a condition which solely affects the Western World. Increasingly, low and middle
income countries are suffering from the condition, often due to a change in their diets, as they
substitute fibre intake for a much higher consumption of saturated fats and sugar. In Beijing, for
example, one in five children of school age is now obese.
The World Heart Federation says obesity can also be blamed for spiralling health costs. The US spends
almost a tenth of its national healthcare budget on overweight patients, and in Western countries as
much as two point eight percent of the total sick care costs is attributable to obesity. The Federation
warns that unless the world's population acts now to eat a healthier diet and to take more exercise,
obesity will rapidly overtake smoking as the leading lifestyle risk factor for heart disease and strokes.
BBC News
Match these words from the text to their meanings
1 on the increase
2 condition
3 low and middle income countries
4 substitute
5 fibre intake
6 higher consumption of saturated fats
7 spiralling
8 attributable to
9 overtake
10 lifestyle risk factor
a growing
b likely to be caused by
c something people choose to do which can badly affect their health
d poorer countries
e eating of more fats
f the amount of fibre they eat
g medical problem
h here, become a bigger problem than...
i here, increasing rapidly
j you use it instead of the other thing
5