Europe, Eastern

Although the Ancient Greeks generally portrayed athletic males on their friezes and figures shown on their jars, there is some evidence of female obesity in surviving imagery. Certainly, there are many figurines of females, often described as “Venuses” which show obese people. In a recent study on a clay figurine found at Farsala, Thessaly, now held at the Athanassakeion Archaeological Museum of Volos, there have been attempts to evaluate views on ancient feminine obesity in connection with the concepts of “Mother Earth.” Other studies have shown that obesity was a major problem in the Byzantine Empire, as increasing prosperity and sedentary lifestyles among some people in cities and towns led to a high body mass index (BMI), and subsequent medical complications.

In Russia, there has long been a problem with obesity rising from overeating and drinking, lack of exercise, and some genetic and inherited traits. Many of these problems affected the rich urban elite. The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) in his notebook wrote of a problem in which a doctor asked the maid of an obese man to put his slippers as far as possible under the bed to remind her master of his obesity at every possible opportunity. Political cartoonists in Russian history often associated obesity with financial or political corruption, with many of these during the Brezhnev period in the Soviet Union careful to show a much slimmer version of Leonid Brezhnev than actually was the case.

Since the end of the Communist rule, obesity has also been associated, in the public mind, with political corruption, with caricaturists and cartoonists overemphasizing the weight of some politicians. Although obesity has long been noticeable in European Russia, and also in Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, it is now a major health concern throughout Siberia as well where the main Siberian populations have massively reduced their amount of physical activity, as well as increasing their consumption of foods that are likely to lead to obesity.

In Finland, the prosperity of the country since the mid-19th century has seen a gradual rise in the BMI, which has become particularly noticeable in the later 20th century. This led to the creation of the Finnish Association for the Study of Obesity (FASO) with Dr. Kirsi Pietiläinen of Helsinki being the national [Page 239]representative on the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO).

In Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, until World War II, obesity was associated with wealth, and during the period of Communist rule came to embody, in the public mind if nowhere else, political corruption, although some came from genetic and inherited factors, and smoking, as well as a more sedentary lifestyle. The end of Communism and the massive rise in affluence in East Central and Eastern Europe has seen the establishment of a large number of associations to improve access to information on the reduction of obesity. In Poland, the Polish Scientific Association of Obesity and Metabolism has Professor Barbara Zahorska-Markiewicz, Department of Pathophysiology, Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, as the national representative on the IASO. In recent years, L. Szponar, J. Ciok, A. Dolna, and M. Oltarzewski from the Department of Food and Nutrition Safety, National Food and Nutrition Institute, Warsaw, have been involved in a number of studies on obesity in Poland.

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