On the occasion of marking European Obesity Day a press conference was held at the Dr Andrija Šampar Institute of Public Health in Zagreb this Friday. An extremely high percentage of the Croatian population, about 56%, are overweight or obese which negatively affects their health and everyday life.

Last year in Croatia almost 1.2 million men and 900,000 women had problems with excessive body weight. This problem is the most widespread amongst young people from 15 to 35 years of age. Around 11.9% of secondary school boys and 14.2% of girls were overweight, whilst 22.9% of male students and 10.3% of female students on their first year of university were obese. But in some cases this problem was identified even at an earlier age: 13.6% of fifth-grade boys and 10.4% of girls were found to be overweight.

According to some recent studies a rising trend in the incidence of excessive weight is widespread in Croatia and worldwide and is a serious threat for human health. This fast growing problem also increases the number of related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, muscular and skeletal system diseases, diabetes as well as depression and various social problems.