Obesity in young Europeans: genetic and environmental influences

Nutrition, lifestyles and genetics are increasingly involved in the maintenance of health and the prevalence of several non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular illnesses, diabetes, cancer etc. In this context, obesity appears as a complex multi-factorial condition resulting from an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure, which has been associated with the genetic background (more than 50 genes have been located in the human gene map associated to obesity), but also with environmental forces such as reduced physical activity (more than 60% of Europeans spend more than 3 h sitting at work) and with the over-consumption of fat-rich and high energy yielding foods (fat oxidation is poorly regulated as compared with other fuel substrates).

Furthermore, subject selection was quota-controlled to make the sample nationally representative by various socio-demographic factors based on the most recent official statistics (census data) in each member state. Overall, there were 15,239 subjects older than 15 y in the EU (17% of them were younger than 24 y old).

The obesity problem appears to be increasing rapidly in children and adolescents as well as in adults with an average rate of obese subjects of about 10% in the European Union, however several factors should be taken into consideration, such as the cut-off references, the age group and the conditions of the data collection when processing the information about obesity prevalence.

Management of the increasing epidemic of obesity in young people must involve prevention strategies concerning nutritional education and physical activity programmes.