why are
we fat?
The Body Mass Index
The BMI of the Swiss population is on the rise. In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the weight of individuals in our country and across the Western world. The prosperity of the population in a country seems to have a direct influence on its weight.
How do you compare?
How poverty plays a role
We asked ourselves if the amount of money a person had, played a role in whether they are overweight. The data seems to confirm this as shown below. Both the poverty rate and the rate of overweight people fall with higher levels of education. Obviously, people without a professional qualification usually earn less on average and are therefore at higher risk of poverty.
Overweight according to educational background
Poverty according to educational background
Why could that be?
Now we have seen that in fact being poor affects peoples weight. But why is that? As you all know, to keep a healthy weight it is important to eat healthy. So we had a look at obstacles to healthy eating and weather there are some hints on why poverty might lead to an increased weight. As you can see, the number one reason for people, not to eat healthy is because healthy food is too expensive for them.
...but is that really true?
Now but this is based on the subjective responses of people who were asked. Is this really the case? Yes, shows a study of the Bernese Fachhochschule.