47 percent of American men said that they wanted their wives to lose weight

A survey about attitudes to weight loss and weight gain done by Reader’s Digest has come up with some surprising results.  Sixteen thousand people in sixteen different nations were questioned for the extensive survey which among other things has revealed that the French still think that American influence is a major factor in the spread of obesity worldwide.

One of the questions concerned whether men were happy with the weight of their wives and another one dealt with whether women were happy with the weight of their husbands. For example in America over half of all the married women said they wanted their husband to lose weight and 47 percent of American men said that they wanted their wives to lose weight. In India there were the most complaints about overweight wives with 48 percent saying their wives should lose weight.

Brazil was a country where it was perceived that there was the most pressure to be slim. Eighty three percent of people questioned said that their culture placed too much of an emphasis on body size. India and America came in at second and third with 68 percent and 62 percent respectively saying that there was too much of an overemphasis on body weight.

One worrying statistic was that 37 percent of those questioned in China admitted to using weight loss drugs. China manufactures a large proportion of the fake and potentially dangerous weight loss medication found on the internet today. Coming in at second was Brazil with 30 percent admitting to diet pill use, followed by Russia with 24 percent, Mexico with 23 percent and America with nineteen percent.

Another question put to the participants was whether they blamed their own genetic makeup for their weight problem. Seventy percent of those in Russia said that their own weight problems were inherited. Sixty one percent in Germany and 50 percent in India said the same. Research shows however that in fact genetic makeup plays a very small part in obesity problems and that only less than 1% of individuals have the FTO gene which makes them slightly more predisposed to obesity.