Malta has one of the most obese populations in the EU, according to a report issued yesterday by the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Nearly one in every four adults (22.3 per cent) was considered to be obese in 2008, much higher than the 15.5 per cent EU average.
The only other EU populations faring worse than Malta are the British (24.5 per cent) and the Irish (23 per cent) with whom the Maltese share their diet as a former colony of the UK.
The least obese people are found to be in Romania (only 7.9 per cent) and neighbouring Italy (9.9 per cent).
The situation among children is even worse, according to the report, as Malta’s children aged 11 to 15 years are the most obese among their European counterparts. While 29.5 per cent of Maltese children are considered to be either obese or overweight, the average in the EU stands at just 13.3 per cent.
The report, Health at a Glance – Europe 2010, compares a raft of health data among the 27 EU member states and on the whole Malta seems to have quite a healthy balance.
While is some areas, like obesity and breast cancer, Malta is lagging behind, in others, like life expectancy, heart disease and prostate cancer, the Maltese are doing relatively well.
The report, however, has some missing data concerning the cost of the Maltese healthcare system and the efficiency rate in certain categories of operations such as hip or knee replacement or cataracts. According to the authors, Malta did not supply this data.
The report also shows that Malta has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the EU. In 2007, life expectancy at birth in Malta stood at 81.7 years for females and 77.3 per cent for males, while the EU average stood at 80.8 years for females and 74.3 for males.
Moreover, Malta also has lower heart disease mortality rates than the EU with 162 deaths per 100,000 population for males and just 86 for women in 2008. In the EU this goes up to 171 for males and 89 for females.
Malta’s average is also better than the EU when it comes to cancer mortality rates, although there appears to be an evident problem in the breast cancer sector.
While mortality as a result of cancer in 2008 stood at 195 (males) and 130 (females) per 100,000 as against 236 (males) and 136 (females) in the EU, Malta had the highest rate of breast cancer mortality in the EU with 27.9 per 100,000 against the EU average of just 23.8.
At the same time, Malta had the lowest rate of prostate cancer mortality rate with just 12.8 per 100,000 population, half the EU’s average.
The report shows that in 2008, Malta also had the lowest suicide rate in the EU, just six per 100,000 population, half the average. The data shows that almost all Maltese suicides involve men as the female suicide mortality rate is just 0.3 per 100,000 population.