Ronaldo and Ronaldinho have been mocked in the past for carrying excess baggage onto the football pitch. True, they may not have been at peak fitness. But there is more than a hint of irony in that much of the derision has come from people considerably more burdened around the midriff.
The European Commission has estimated that up to 27% of European men and 38% of women are overweight; 22 million children are too, and this figure is rising by 400,000 every year.
A deluge of information on the pitfalls has included scaremongering television documentaries ramming home the physical and psychological side-effects, from heart disease to depression, while news reports have highlighted other consequences of Europe's expanding waistline – the 7% of total healthcare costs in Europe that are attributed to obesity.
The European Union has begun to call for calories to be cut and sofas to be vacated. Green and white papers on diet and physical activity have been published and networks and platforms established. The Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, set up in March 2005 with major actors in the private and public sectors, aims to stimulate initiatives at national, regional and local levels, to compensate for its lack of legislative power.
Initiatives focusing on improving diet have been criticised, however, for neglecting the value of exercise.
Sport for all
Robert Madelin, director- general of health and consumer protection, defends the Commission's efforts. “A big decision was made to move from an ‘obesity roundtable' to a platform for action on nutrition and physical activity,” he told European Voice. “The platform has had some impact in raising the level of EU-wide promotion of physical activity; indeed, colleagues responsible for sport in DG Education and Culture have been in dialogue with the platform both before and after the issue of their ‘sports for all' policy paper.”
This white paper on sport, published last July, recognised that the “potential of the sport movement to foster health-enhancing physical activity often remains under-utilised” and pledged to make physical activity among the young “a cornerstone” of the Commission's activities.
Proliferation
Recent months have seen a proliferation of sports-related projects. Football has begun to play a greater part in the fight against obesity. 2007 saw 2.6 million children from 110,000 schools across 40 countries participate in the FIFA-endorsed Danone Nations Cup. UEFA, with the Commission's backing, produced a ‘Get Active' advertisement – which begins with a group of portly men playing football from their sofas and ends with the slogan “Go on, get out of your armchair!” – that has been aired across Europe at half-time in all of this season's Champions Leagues matches. The European football body has also struck a deal with the World Heart Foundation and helped to bring attention to the World Heart Day campaign by involving football stars such as Fabio Cannavaro and Steven Gerrard.
Sport is beginning to win supporters in the battle against obesity. Madelin insists, however, that sport will remain secondary to diet and nutrition in EU initiatives: “It is clear that activity happens locally and therefore it is ‘harder to reach' than, say, food-processing, where a lot of big companies are involved, where EU regulation is the norm and where there is a tradition of EU debate”. But Jan Figel', the commissioner responsible for sport, points out: “Sport offers fantastic possibilities because it is Europe's biggest social movement.” If these possibilities are acted upon, in years to come maybe fans will be in more of a position to criticise the two Ronnies.
