Obesity rises among adults in Vorarlberg

Obesity is becoming more common among adults in Vorarlberg, with inquiries at the outpatient clinics of Feldkirch State Hospital rising by about 10 percent in recent years, ORF reported. Data also show a link between obesity and social disadvantage.

A recent University of Cambridge study found that almost one in three adults in England is obese. The condition was 35 percent more common among people in the poorest fifth of the population than among those in the richest fifth. The study analysed health data from more than 55 million people.

No comparable analysis is available for Vorarlberg, but experts told ORF that living conditions also have a major influence on how healthily people can live there.

Long-term data from Statistics Austria show that the proportion of obese people in Vorarlberg rose from 12.8 percent in 2006-07 to 16.5 percent in 2019. The increase was particularly pronounced among men. According to the province’s 2025 health report, about 47 percent of people aged 15 and over in Vorarlberg are overweight or obese.

Among children and adolescents, however, there has been no further recent increase. School examinations found that about 17.3 percent of pupils were overweight or obese in the 2024-25 school year, down from 17.8 percent the previous year.

Boys are affected more often than girls, and the proportion of overweight children rises with age. More overweight children live in urban areas than in rural areas. Children whose first language is not German are also more frequently affected, with particularly high rates in special-needs schools.

Data from kindergarten examinations show that the proportion of overweight children increased during the coronavirus pandemic before levelling off in the following years, according to Kristin Ganahl, head of a division at the Vorarlberg Working Group for Preventive and Social Medicine. Overall, she said, it could not be concluded that children in Vorarlberg were becoming heavier year after year.

Ganahl also said the widely used body mass index has limited value. It reveals little about a child’s actual health or body composition, but is used because height and weight can be recorded easily and inexpensively during school examinations.

Ganahl said poverty did not automatically cause overweight. Instead, she pointed to living conditions, including the affordability of leisure activities, time available for cooking, safe routes for walking or cycling and housing conditions.

People working several jobs or single parents under severe time pressure are more likely to choose food that is quickly available, she said. Highly processed, energy-dense foods are also widely available and heavily advertised.

The Vorarlberg Anti-Poverty Conference warned against treating obesity solely as an individual problem. Poverty affects housing, diet and participation in society, and therefore people’s chances of living healthily. At the same time, illness can reinforce poverty by making it harder to work.

Austrian health data point to similar social differences. Among people over 30, 65 percent of those with no education beyond compulsory school are overweight or obese, compared with 44 percent of those with a secondary school-leaving or university degree. Among women, 54 percent in the lowest income fifth are overweight or obese, compared with 40 percent in the highest fifth.