共用题干
Obesity:the Scourge of the Western World
Obesity is rapidly becoming a new scourge of the western world,delegates agreed at the 11th European Conference on the issue in Vienna Wednesday to Saturday. According to state-ments before the opening of the conference一of 2,000 specialists from more than 50 countries一1.2 billion people worldwide are overweight,and 250 million are obese.
Professor Bernhard Ludvik of Vienna General Hospital said:“Obesity is a chronic ill-ness.In Germany,20 percent of the people are already affected,but in Japan only one per-cent.”But he said that there was hope for sufferers thanks to the new scientific discoveries and medication.
Professor Friedrich Hopichler of Salzberg said:“We are living in the new age(but)with the metabolism of a stone-age man.”“I have just been to the United States.It is really terni-ble.A pizza shop is springing up on every corner. We have been overrun by fast food and Co-ca-Cola-ization.”
Many of the experts stressed that obesity was a potential killer. Hopichler said:“Eighty percent of all diabetics are obese,also fifty percent of all patients with high blood pressure and fifty percent with adipose tissue complaints.”“Ten percent more weight means thirteen percent more risk of heart disease.Reducing one's weight by ten percent leads to thirteen percent lower blood pressure.”
Another expert Hermann Toplak said that the state health services should improve their financing of preventive programs.“Though the health insurance pays for surgery( such as re-ducing the size of the stomach)when the body-mass index is more than 40.That is equivalent to a weight of 116 kilograms for a height of 1.70 meters.One should start earlier.”
Ludvik said that prevention should begin in school.“Child obesity(fat deposits)correlates with the time which children spend in front of TV sets.”The consequences were only apparent later on. No more than fifteen percent of obese people lived to the average life ex-pectancy for their population group.
It seems that the______people are least affected by obesity among the developed countries and areas mentioned in the passage.
A: European
B: German
C: American
D: Japanese
