Obesity white paper from European Commission

The European Commission yesterday adopted a white paper setting out a European strategy on nutrition, overweight and obesity, including plans to review progress in three years.

In the majority of Member States more than 50% of the adult
population is overweight or obese. Furthermore, it is estimated that 21,748,312
million children are overweight in the EU with this figure growing by 400,000
each year.

The White Paper stresses the importance
of enabling consumers to make informed choices, ensuring that healthy options
are available, and calls upon the food industry to work on reformulating
recipes, in particular to reduce levels of salt and fats. Stressing the benefit
of physical activity and encouraging Europeans to exercise more is another area
to develop.

It aims to strengthen links with Member
States, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other important stakeholders
and in 2010 wants to control the efficiency of the motions from White paper.