Britons are fat because they are lazy, not because they eat too much, researchers say.
A report in the British Medical Journal, which looked at statistics showing the number of seriously obese people in Britain had doubled over the past decade, blamed too much television.A government report issued last month showed that one in six women and one in eight men could be classified as medically obese.
Dr. Andrew Prentice and colleagues at the Medical Research Council's Nutrition Center in Cambridge used statistics from a series of national surveys to investigate the possible causes.
Although doctors know that a high-fat diet increases obesity, and although Britons get about 40 percent of their calories from fat as opposed to a recommended 25 percent, they are actually eating less fat than in the past.
The only possible explanation, they found, is that Britons are burning fewer calories - that is, exercising less.