How much food do you think you will eat by the time you are seventy-nine?
The average Frenchwoman, for example, will eat:
25 cows
40 sheep
35 pigs
1,200 chickens
2.07 tonnes of fish
5.05 tonnes of potatoes
30,000 litres of milk
13,000 eggs
50,000 loaves of bread
12,000 bottles of wine
9,000 litres of orange juice
6,000 litres of mineral water
1.37 tonnes of apples
768 kg of oranges
2.07 tonnes of fish
430 bags of carrots
5.05 tonnes of potatoes
720 kg of tomatoes
30,000 litres of milk
1,300 lettuces
13,000 eggs
Hundreds of packets of coffee, sugar, spaghetti, etc 8 kg
of dirt
Delicious, isn’t it? How many cows and pigs have you swallowed already?
Scientists say that we eat about half-a-ton of food a year – not counting drink!
Some people eat even more. According to WHO (World Health Organization), Americans are the fattest people in the world. 55% of women and 63% of men over 25 are overweight or obese. (Doctors say that you are obese if you weight at least 30% above ideal body weight.)
“Compared to Europeans, Americans eat all the time,” writes Joanna Coles, a British correspondent for The Guardian. “At the hairdressers, in their cars, during college lectures, while waiting in hospital and at the cinema, where they arrive clutching monster buckets of pop-corn, Doberman sized hot-dogs and containers (!) of diet Pepsi”.Though America is the world leader in obesity, Europe is quickly catching up. According to WHO, almost one-third of people living in the European Union are now overweight and one in 10 is obese.
Britain has replaced Germany as Europe’s most overweight nation! 20% of women and 17% of men are obese. And the English are fatter than the Scots or Welsh.
Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland also have some of the heaviest people in Europe.
Even in such countries as French, Italy and Sweden, Europe’s slimmest nations, people (especially women) are becoming fatter.
Among the French, Italians and Swedish, who are considered to be Europe’s slimmest nations, the number of overweight people is dramatically rising.