Mediterranean gets fat

Remember the Mediterranean Diet, the traditional way of eating common to Greece, Crete and environs? It's heavy on olive oil, whole grains, fruits and fish, and low on red meat, refined sugar and flout, and the kinds of things that have made Americans fat? Well, it's gone the way of the dodo as US-style fast food and eating habits have invaded the region. Excerpt:

This spring, a majority of children who were tested at the elementary school of this sleepy port town of 3,000, also known as Kissamos, were found to have high cholesterol. "It was the talk of the school," said Stella Kazazakou, 44. "Instead of grades, the moms were comparing cholesterol levels."

In Greece, three-quarters of the adult population is overweight or obese, the worst rate in Europe "by far," according to the United Nations. The rates of overweight 12-year-old boys rose more than 200 percent from 1982 to 2002 and have been rising even faster since.

Italy and Spain are not far behind, with more than 50 percent of adults overweight. That compares with about 45 percent in France and the Netherlands.

In the United States, 66 percent of adults older than 20 were overweight in 2004, and 31.9 percent of children 2 through 19 were overweight in 2006, although childhood statistics are compiled somewhat differently in different countries.

In Greece, the increase in the number of fat children has been particularly striking, parents and doctors say.

"Their diet is totally different than ours was," said Soula Sfakianakis, 40, recalling breakfasts of goat milk, bread and honey. Her son, Vassilis, a husky 9-year-old who had a chocolate mustache from a recently conquered ice cream cone, said he preferred cornflakes in the morning and steak or macaroni and cheese for dinner.

One father said of his chunky daughter, "We're trying to keep her off sugar now. If we continue like this, we're going to become like Americans, and no one wants that."

Of course not. America is a nation of obese debtors, slaves to our own appetites. What kind of model to the rest of the world is that?