From here
26% of Australians are obese, compared to 25% for America.
Now, I know it’s not in good taste to poke fun of weight problems, but since when have I ever had good taste? This excerpt from the article cracks me up:
And umm… pay no heed to that mention of studies suggesting 34% of America is obese. Yup…
And yet when I was in the Melbourne CBD a couple of days ago I couldn’t believe the number of people out running, cycling, walking etc. I guess it was because they finally had a sunny day to get out and about ;). The unfortunate fact is that we are becoming a sedantry society (western societies in general, not just Australia.) Exercise is now done as a special activity by people with the motivation to do it. Fewer people have a lifestyle that naturally involves exercise. Perhaps the increase in fuel prices will encourage more people to use walking or cycling as a mode of transport.
from the US…
Woohoo! We’re number two! 
Urgh, I feel I should go to a gym.
They obviously saw me out for a walk.
We’ve got a long way to go to beat Tonga.
Who knew Vegemite was so fattening?
I question such statistics.
When I walk down the street, I would certainly not say 25% of people I see are in any way obese. You’d be lucky if it was 10%. I think they’ve adjusted what constitutes obese to be what used to be known as “slightly overweight”. How can you defeat it when they keep moving the goalposts?
And let’s not forget that 26% of Australia is about 5,500,000 people, whereas 25% of the US is something in the region of 75,000,000 people. Therefore, no matter how you look at it, there are still going to be more obese people in the US than Australia.
To put it another way: according to these statistics, there are over three times as many obese people in the US than the entire population of Australia, obese or otherwise.
And I also question the validity of the “One in four Aussies is a Lardass!” claim. I can count the number of “obese” people I’d see in a typical day on one hand with fingers left over, and I work in retail…
How on Earth can so many people be obese in Australia? Don’t you have to be in pretty good shape to run away from all the wild animals trying to kill you over there?
But if you’re walking down the street, there’s a good chance that the people you see are also walking down the street. Thus, they are walking. People who walk places are less likely to be obese than those who drive, and you can’t easily tell if someone is obese from a quick glance as they zoom past.
In the study’s abstract :
Sorry guys. 
Walking is just used as an example. I was counting all my observations, both within vehicles and without. And I do look into vehicles often enough.
There are many obese people I encounter from day to day, but 25% of them? One in four? Ridiculous.
Well, we’re lucky I’m here bucking the trend, I reckon. 
We need to be able to playfully rib the Americans for being fat bastards or it’s no fun. I demand a recount!
Also, if they’re using BMI, they may have artificially skewed their results. While BMI is an okay guage for some sedentary people (meaning it’s not always accurate even for sedentaries), it doesn’t take into account bone density and muscle mass. For example, when I was a little heavier than my thinnest weight (at the time of the measurement, I was a size 6 at 5’9), I was considered very overweight because I weighed about 165. Given that at the time I was training for a marathon, I took that number with a grain of salt.
Even if these numbers turn out to be relatively accurate based on the BMI, if they did an individual-by-individual analysis (which is pretty hard to do), I’m guessing their results would differ drastically. And, given that I didn’t see an indication of how they did the study, for all we know, they grabbed a scale and a calculator and went to the nearest city block and stopped and weighed people on the spot.
Yeah, but you have to balance that out with the slow moving stealth you need to avoid drawing the attention of the drop bears.
See, the really active people are out there getting killed off by the various fangs, stingers, barbs, tentacles and jaws of death. That leaves only the stay-at-home types to reproduce. And they only have to be nimble enough to swat a deadly spider now and then.
It’s evolution, really. Survival of the fattest.
Well, for one thing, as quoted above they studied middle aged people because they were the the group most likely to be fat. And then they were surprised to find that a high percentage were fat. Science strikes again.