Couch potato lifestyle is worse for your health than smoking 
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor, in Berlin (Filed: 03/09/2002) 

Poor diet and lack of exercise cause more illness than smoking, new figures show.

The lifestyle of couch potatoes has overtaken smoking as the major cause of ill-health in EU countries for the first time, the World Health Organisation says.

Dr Aileen Robertson told the European Society of Cardiology annual meeting in Berlin yesterday that doctors and governments must take the issue of diet and exercise more seriously.

Telling people to eat more fruit and vegetables and to take exercise did not work if there were no policies to help people change, she said.

"I am not saying that smoking plays no part in ill-health. I am saying that diet is as important and we have to get that through because it is not understood at the moment." 

"Around 30 to 40 per cent of cancer cases could be prevented through better diet," Dr Robertson said.

"Obesity in adults is up 20 to 30 per cent and is also escalating among children, increasing their future risk of cardiovascular disease."

Dr Robertson gave examples of programmes in Finland which had reduced heart disease by 65 per cent between 1972 and 1994.

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