An increasing number of people in the Nord-Trøndelag region over the age of 20 are overweight according to a fresh report due to be released by the HUNT research centre in Verdal, attached to the Faculty of Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Worst amongst the young

Aftenposten.no writes that although the number of people that are obese – that is to say those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 30 – is still higher in the U.S Kristian Midthjell, Professor in Applied Community Medicine at the university, believes that Norway is about to overtake America in relation to how many are classified as being too heavy.

“Two-thirds of them have a BMI of over 25, which is the definition of being overweight” he tells the paper.

The biggest increase has been amongst men. Midthjell says that there are three times as many that are overweight today than there were 20 years ago, and is of the opinion that this figure is representative for the entire country.

Health risk

During a programme on NRK in May called “Puls”, the professor expressed his concern about the increase being so great amongst the younger age-groups.

“It’s a problem, because they literally will carry their burden with them for many years. And it has been shown that there are many ailments associated with being overweight that become worse the longer one is so” he told them.

Some of the ailments associated with being overweight are cardiovascular disease and diabetes type 2 which, if left untreated, can lead to kidney-failure and be fatal.

The report shows there are 320,000 Norwegians with diabetes type 2, with approximately half of them being unaware that they have it. A further 320,000 could also be at risk of developing the disease.