You eat a huge greasy hamburger for lunch then carefully crunch on a few lettuce leaves for dinner. You go for a run and light up that cigarette as you recover. You choose a low-fat meal and wash it down with three beers. Strange? Not really. Perhaps not ideal behaviour... but it is surprisingly normal.

Synovate conducted its second global 'Healthy Living' survey in February 2009 on health, weight control and attitudes to food and exercise – and discovered that, when it comes to food and weight – people are not always logical.

The pizza paradox
Tucking into tacos, nibbling on nuggets and chowing-down on chips. More than a third of all respondents across the 12 markets surveyed say they like fast food too much to give it up. >>MORE

This year's number one fast food nation... (would you like fries with that?)
Everyone knows that the United States of America (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) have populations that consume large amounts of fast food. Indeed, last year's number one fast food nation was the UK with 45% agreeing that they like the taste of fast food too much to give it up, just pipping the US at the post (where 44% agreed). But this year both nations have been resoundingly trounced in terms of fast food addiction... >>MORE

Tackling the tub
Your jeans must have shrunk in the dryer, right? You couldn't have possibly put on that much, could you? This moment happens to most of us from time to time (and some of us almost daily), so what strategies do people around the world use to battle their bulges? >>MORE

Operation Bikini
Like the people of the UAE, Brazil and Spain were two other markets with people who seem to throw multiple strategies at losing weight. Also like the UAE, the motivations for doing so may be more around looking good than being healthy. As Synovate Spain's Managing Director Julio Vidosa says, it's all about 'Operation Bikini'. >>MORE

The Bridget Jones effect
Alcohol units 4 (oops); cigarettes 0 (VG); calories, one Mars Bar and small salad, should be 1,500 if I don't eat dinner...

When Renée Zellweger, an American, signed on to play the very British Bridget Jones in the 2001 movie, the producers may have been making more of a statement than they realised... it turns out the two groups who are most likely to link food to mood, emotionally eating their way through life, are American and British women. >>MORE

Chinese takeouts
As China becomes a major world player, its people become more and more exposed to the influences of other cultures – both good and bad. >>MORE

The weighty issue of obesity
Is obesity the Government's fault? Is it society? Who's to blame? >>MORE

About the Survey
Numbers of people surveyed

BR 600

BG 1000

CA 900

CN 2000

IN 1000

MY 1000

NL 1000

SP 500

SW 500

UAE 600

UK 500

USA 500