Fewer Danes smoke and drink too much, but more are living with obesity
New study provides an overview of six key trends in Danes’ health behaviours over the past 35 years.
Danes live very differently today compared to 30–40 years ago. This is shown in a new analysis of nine large national health surveys conducted between 1987 and 2023.
The proportion of individuals smoking daily has dropped dramatically – from almost half of the population, 44 percent, in 1987 to 12 percent in 2023. The share of Danes with a high weekly alcohol intake – that is, more than the recommendations set by the Danish Health Authority – has also declined, from 25 to 16 percent between 2010 and 2023.
However, the trend has gone in the opposite direction for other indicators. While only 6 percent lived with obesity in 1987, the figure now stands at 19 percent. At the same time, the proportion with an unhealthy dietary pattern has increased from 13 to 19 percent.
When it comes to leisure-time sedentary behaviour, the picture is more mixed, while cannabis use has remained largely unchanged at around 7 percent.
The study was carried out by the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark and has just been published in the scientific journal Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.
Prevention still important
According to the researchers behind the study, Denmark has achieved significant progress in some areas – especially tobacco prevention, largely due to gradually stricter tobacco legislation. The same is true for alcohol prevention.
“But it remains important to continue working on prevention. For example, smoking is still the single most important risk factor responsible for the highest number of deaths in Denmark,” says Heidi Rosendahl, postdoc at the National Institute of Public Health.
She adds that in many other European countries, national prevention plans have been adopted with explicit targets in several areas of public health.
“In Denmark, so far only one prevention plan has been adopted – aimed at reducing young people’s use of alcohol, tobacco and nicotine products. The next step could therefore be to broaden the plan to cover the entire population and additional indicators such as diet and obesity,” says Heidi Rosendahl.
About the data
The analysis is based on data from the Danish Health and Morbidity Survey (SUSY) and theDanish National Health Survey (NATSUP). In total, nearly 800,000 Danes aged 16 and above have completed questionnaires and interviews between 1987 and 2023.
The figure shows the proportion who smokes daily, drinks more than 10 standard units of alcohol weekly, lives with obesity, and has an unhealthy dietary pattern, respectively, among individuals aged 16 years or older. 1987-2023. Percentage
Contact: Postdoc Heidi Rosendahl, e-mail: harj@sdu.dk, tel.: +45 6550 7792, National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark