Poor diet as bad as smoking for health

-- Insufficient consumption of fish, fruit and vegetables is as bad for human health as smoking, a Dutch report said on Monday. The study, which the European Food Safety Authority says it will use when analyzing food and diet risks, concludes that most cases of serious illness and death in the Netherlands is caused by poor diet.

"Taking into account not just deaths but also years spent living with serious disability, unhealthy dietary habits cause as much health loss as does smoking," said the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). "Unhealthy diet composition currently reduces the average life expectancy of 40-year-old Dutch by 1.2 years, while obesity claims 0.8 years." --