Obesity
Percentage of population aged 15 and above with a MBI greater than 30, 2003 or latest available year
More than 50% of adults are now defined as either being overweight or obese in no less than 10 OECD countries: the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Slovak Republic, Greece, New Zealand, Hungary, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic. By comparison, overweight and obesity rates are much lower in the OECD’s two Asian countries (Japan and Korea) and in some European countries (France and Switzerland), although overweight and obesity rates are also increasing in these countries. Focusing only on obesity, the prevalence of obesity among adults varies from a low of 3% in Japan and Korea to a high of 31% in the United States.
Based on consistent measures of obesity over time, the rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past twenty years in the United States, while it has almost tripled in Australia and more than tripled in the United Kingdom. The obesity rate in many Western European countries has also increased substantially over the past decade.
Gender differences are striking. Over all countries, more men are overweight than women, but in just over half of OECD countries, more women are obese than men. Taking overweight and obesity together, the rate for women exceeds that for men in only two countries—Mexico and Turkey.
Forest
Forest and other wooded land
As a percentage of land area, latest available year
The percentage of land covered by forest and other wooded land varies widely from country to country: from shares of over 60% in Finland, Sweden, Japan and Korea to 10% or less in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland and Iceland.
Long time series are required to capture changes in forest areas. Increases are generally due to active government policies of land afforestation while decreases may be caused by fires, clear-felling of forests without replanting, and conversion of forest land to residential, agricultural and other uses.
The area of forests and wooded land has remained stable or has slightly increased at national level in most OECD countries and has remained stable in the OECD as a whole. However, forest areas have been decreasing at the world level due in part to continued deforestation in tropical countries.
Tsunami aid
DAC member country responses to the tsunami disaster
Millions of US dollars
The unprecedented humanitarian response to the Indian Ocean tsunami prompted governments, international organizations, private individuals, charities and companies to pledge $13.6 billion to the affected countries. Of that, $5.3 billion was from OECD member governments, and a further amount from private citizens in OECD countries.
Donor governments and the European Commission have committed $1.7 billion to emergency aid and $1.9 billion to longer-term reconstruction projects, to be spent by 2009. More than 90% of the emergency aid—nearly $1.6 billion—was spent in the nine months immediately following the disaster. For reconstruction, $473 million has been spent, leaving $1.4 billion committed and in the pipeline for spending over the coming years.
Together, Indonesia and Sri Lanka have received more than 60% of the funds committed so far.
Government debt
General government gross financial liabilities
As a percentage of GDP
From 1990 to 1996, government gross financial liabilities were rising in most countries. Since then, government debt has been decreasing as a percentage of GDP in many of the 27 countries in the table. There are, however, exceptions: government debt ratios continued to increase particularly fast in Japan and Korea and significantly in France, Germany and Greece. Korea’s government debt ratio rose by over 7% per year from 1990 to 2003, but this is measured from a very low initial rate and by 2003, Korea’s government debt ratio was still among the lowest in the OECD.
In 2004, government debt ratios exceeded 100% in Greece, Italy and Japan and was close to 100% in Belgium. Most countries were in a band between 40% and 70%, with three countries reporting debt ratios of under 20%—Luxembourg, Korea and Australia.
