Moscow Is Fat City; 40% Rated Overweight

This city is the fat capital of the Soviet Union, with about 40% of the city’s 9 million residents overweight, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Thursday.

The newspaper said that 25% of the 290 million Soviets are considered overweight. One in five Soviet children are considered too fat and medically endangered.

Pravda did not give any exact figures for what doctors consider to be overweight but it did say Moscow was way out of line compared to the rest of the country, with 3.6 million people here considered too fat.

And according to doctors’ surveys, excess fat leads directly to medical problems. It said that 51% of patients with heart disease are overweight, while 62% of patients with hypertension and 64% of diabetics are considered overweight.