--- title: Obesity: 'Almost All' Irish and Most British People Overweight By 2030 description: Worrying projections were made at the European Congress on Obesity in Prague on Wednesday. canonical: https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/ author: Sabrina Toppa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-07T04:34:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:34.633Z article:section: Health og:title: 'Almost All' Irish and Most British Overweight By 2030 og:description: Obesity epidemic of 'enormous proportions' will also affect the rest of Europe og:url: https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c4099a9832bd9e5/6987eeb855a85918e1a89fc4/72133095.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2500 og:image:height: 1406 og:image:alt: A woman stands outside a sandwich shop in Manchester, England, October 10, 2006 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Almost All' Irish and Most British Overweight By 2030 twitter:description: Obesity epidemic of 'enormous proportions' will also affect the rest of Europe twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c4099a9832bd9e5/6987eeb855a85918e1a89fc4/72133095.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Most British and Irish People Will Be Overweight or Obese By 2030 > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_ by [Sabrina Toppa](https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/) ## Sabrina Toppa May 7, 2015 4:34 AM UTC  A woman stands outside a sandwich shop in Manchester, England, October 10, 2006 A woman stands outside a sandwich shop in Manchester, England, October 10, 2006 Paul Ellis—AFP/Getty Images by [Sabrina Toppa](https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/) ## Sabrina Toppa May 7, 2015 4:34 AM UTC Ireland, a country that was synonymous with starvation and famine in the 19th century, could become the most overweight country in Europe by 2030, with 89% of Irish men, and 85% of Irish women [projected](http://news.yahoo.com/europe-faces-massive-obesity-problem-study-222035428.html) to be overweight by then. That’s according to a press statement made at the European Congress on Obesity in Prague on Wednesday. The statement added that by 2030, 64% percent of women in the U.K., and nearly three-quarters of the male population, will be overweight, AFP [reports](http://news.yahoo.com/europe-faces-massive-obesity-problem-study-222035428.html). The data stems from an examination of 37 countries in a [forecast exercise](http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/obesity/data-and-statistics), using 2010 data from the WHO and U.K. Health Forum. Being overweight is defined as having a [body mass index](http://www.who.int/gho/ncd/risk%5Ffactors/overweight%5Ftext/en/) (BMI) exceeding 25, and obesity as having a BMI of 30 or more. With obesity’s growth skyrocketing more than twofold since 1980, almost 40% of the worldwide adult population — nearly two billion people — can now be classified as overweight, WHO data says. Of those two billion, more than 500 million are clinically obese. Obesity costs the world nearly 3% of the global GDP, or $2 trillion in health and labor-related expenditures and losses, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. \[[_AFP_](http://news.yahoo.com/europe-faces-massive-obesity-problem-study-222035428.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/"},"headline":"Most British and Irish People Will Be Overweight or Obese By 2030","datePublished":"2015-05-07T04:34:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:34.633Z","description":"An obesity epidemic of 'enormous proportions' will also affect the rest of Europe","url":"https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","overweight","Obesity","WHO","Ireland"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c4099a9832bd9e5/6987eeb855a85918e1a89fc4/72133095.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sabrina Toppa","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/sabrina-toppa/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5c4099a9832bd9e5/6987eeb855a85918e1a89fc4/72133095.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A woman stands outside a sandwich shop in Manchester, England, October 10, 2006","caption":"A woman stands outside a sandwich shop in Manchester, England, October 10, 2006","creditText":"Paul Ellis—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3849742/obesity-overweight-europe-britain-ireland-diet/","name":"Most British and Irish People Will Be Overweight or Obese By 2030"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Truth About Fat","description":"When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? 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