AUSTRALIA may be fat, and getting fatter, but there is no evidence that it is the fattest country in the world - contrary to a blizzard of recent media reports warning the country is a ticking "fat bomb" about to explode.
Within hours of launching its biennial snapshot report on the nation's health yesterday, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare issued a statement saying it "did not know of any reliable statistics that would support the claim that we were worse than all other countries".
Many news services, including The Australian, reported last week that this country had become the world's most overweight nation, after a report by the Melbourne-based Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute claimed that "almost four million adult Australians are currently obese".
The report claimed this would result in an extra 700,000 hospital admissions in the next 20 years, costing an extra $6 billion.
But yesterday, AIHW director Penny Allbon said the methods by which those estimates were derived could not be supported by existing evidence.
The Australia's Health report showed that 19 per cent of males and 17 per cent of females qualified as obese, equivalent to 2.5million people, Dr Allbon said. If the much larger category of overweight people were included, that amounted to 7.4 million people. "So it's high, but it still doesn't make us the fattest in the world," she said.
"We do know that Australians have been gradually getting fatter over at least the last 20 years.
"The most recent data that we have that tells us about the population is the 2004-05 health survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. At the moment the ABS is out there measuring height and weight in a population-based survey, so we don't know the results.
"We were just a bit concerned that the statistics that came out about us being the fattest in the world is not based on a population survey."
The Baker's results were based on measurements of people at 100 sites around the country, which the AIHW said might not have given a representative sample of the population.
The Australia's Health report said close to three in 10 children were either overweight or obese.
Tony Hobbs, a GP in the southeastern NSW town of Cootamundra and chairman of the Australian General Practice Network, said people "don't need to get carried away" making international comparisons that might mean little.
"I think it's important we worry about our own population, and the other illnesses obesity will drive - and look at a way to engage obese people so we can help them," he said. "We can get distracted by international comparisons."
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) conference, held in Canberra, Australia, received mixed messages on Tuesday about the health of Australians. While average life expectancy is 81.4 years, second only to Japan's 82.2, and rates of cancer, heart disease and stroke are dropping, incidence of obesity, alcohol-related diseases, and sexually transmitted infections are on the increase.

The AIHW report highlighted the increasing gap between Australia's Indigenous population and the rest of the nation. Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have a life expectancy around 17 years lower than the general populace, and in at least four states 71% of Aboriginals who died were under 65-years old, compared with 21% for the rest of the population. Indigenous Australians are reported to have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, respiratory illness, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. People living in rural and regional areas were also found to have lower life expectancies and higher illness rates than their suburban and metropolitan counterparts.

While obesity is a growing concern in Australia, AIHW director Penny Allbon expressed skepticism over a recent report from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute that claimed that Australia had overtaken the United States as the "fattest" nation in the world, with "over four million adult Australians ... currently obese". Allben commented that the institute's sample from 100 locations across the country may not be representative of the whole population. "At the moment the ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics is out there measuring height and weight in a population-based survey, so we don't know the results," Dr Allbon said. "We were just a bit concerned that the statistics that came out about us being the fattest in the world is not based on a population survey." AIHW reported the number of Australians being obese as closer to 2.5 million, with 7.4 million being overweight.

Between 1997 and 2005, the number of general practitioners in Australia has dropped 9%, although in regional areas there has been an increase of 15%.

Based on the report, the AIHW has recommended that Australians consider lifestyle change, such as healthier eating and more exercise, to alleviate the pressure on Australia's public health system. "In rank order, the greatest improvements can be achieved through reductions in tobacco smoking, high blood pressure, overweight/obesity, physical inactivity, high blood cholesterol and excessive alcohol consumption," according to Dr. Allbon.