UK women are now officially the fattest in Europe

A quarter of women and a fifth of men in the UK are now so overweight that their health is at serious risk.



British women head the EU league, with 23 per cent clinically obese, and men fare little better, with 22.3 per cent classified as obese - behind only Malta.

Measured by calculating Body Mass Index - a mathematical formula relating height to weight - people are classified as obese if they weigh a fifth more than their ideal maximum weight.

The EU statisticians looked only at adult obesity, but previous studies have shown rates of child obesity are equally worrying.

In Britain the figures have trebled in 20 years, with 10 per cent of six-year-olds and 17 per cent of 15-year-olds now obese.