Life expectancy in Europe is continuing to increase despite an obesity epidemic

Life expectancy in Europe is continuing to increase despite an obesity epidemic, with people in Britain reaching an older age than those living in the United States, according to study of trends over the last 40 years.

In a report in International Journal of Epidemiology, population health expert David Leon of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the findings counteract concerns that the rising life expectancy trend in wealthy nations may be coming to an end in the face of health problems caused by widespread levels of obesity.

They also suggest that simple factors like how rich a nation is and how much it spends on health care do not necessarily correlate with its people's lifespans.

Despite spending more per head on health care than any other country in the world, life expectancy in the United States is at the same level as the lowest of any Western European country -- Portugal for men and Denmark for women -- and the rate for women is increasing at a much slower pace than Western Europe.

In 2007, life expectancy in the United States was 78 years, compared to 80 in Britain, Leon noted.

"This simple observation once again underlines that GDP and health-care expenditure per capita are not good predictors of population health within high income countries," he wrote.