What makes Norwegians among the healthiest in world?
Friluftsliv is not a myth. According to the latest health survey by OECD, Norwegians are the third most active nation in the 38-member group, helping them to live longer, healthier lives.
More than two-thirds of Norwegians (69 percent) spent more than 150 minutes a week on physical activity, the organisation's Health at a Glance report found, a performance beaten only by beach-going Australians (71 percent) and the mountaineering Swiss (78 percent).
Norwegians ranked third out of the 38 OECD countries in terms of physical exercise. Graphic: OECD
All that time spent hiking and cross-country skiing appears to pay off, with Norwegians living to 83.2 years old on average, just behind the Japanese on 84.5 and Switzerland on 83.9 and more or less neck and neck with Australia (83.3), Spain (83.3), and Iceland (83.2).
Life expectancy at birth for OECD countries. Graphic: OECD
When it came to bad habits like drinking, Norwegians were also healthier than the average OECD inhabitant, with the average Norwegian over the age of 15 knocking back only 7.4 litres of pure alcohol per year, compared to 8.6 litres for the 38 countries as a whole.
This was just behind neighbouring Sweden on 7.6 litres and far behind Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, whose people put away an average of 12.2, 12.1 and 11.6 litres respectively.
Only 8 percent of Norwegians over 15 smoked daily, compared to an OECD average of 16 percent, and only 0.8 percent of Norwegians said they had taken cocaine in the last 12 months, compared to an OECD average of 1.2 percent.
Where Norway performed poorly when it came to drugs was in the 49.1 people who died from opioids a year per 100,000 of the population.
This was well above the OECD average of 29.7, although still far behind the crisis-hit US, which had 223 deaths per 100,000, Estonia with 130.4, or Canada with 75.7 deaths. It was more or less in line with Sweden , which had 50.4 deaths, and just below Finland's 56.5 deaths.
According to the OECD's summary of Norway's results, the country also performed well on the quality of its health service, boasting, for example, nearly double the number of nurses as the OECD average.
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More than two-thirds of Norwegians (69 percent) spent more than 150 minutes a week on physical activity, the organisation's Health at a Glance report found, a performance beaten only by beach-going Australians (71 percent) and the mountaineering Swiss (78 percent).
All that time spent hiking and cross-country skiing appears to pay off, with Norwegians living to 83.2 years old on average, just behind the Japanese on 84.5 and Switzerland on 83.9 and more or less neck and neck with Australia (83.3), Spain (83.3), and Iceland (83.2).
When it came to bad habits like drinking, Norwegians were also healthier than the average OECD inhabitant, with the average Norwegian over the age of 15 knocking back only 7.4 litres of pure alcohol per year, compared to 8.6 litres for the 38 countries as a whole.
This was just behind neighbouring Sweden on 7.6 litres and far behind Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, whose people put away an average of 12.2, 12.1 and 11.6 litres respectively.
Only 8 percent of Norwegians over 15 smoked daily, compared to an OECD average of 16 percent, and only 0.8 percent of Norwegians said they had taken cocaine in the last 12 months, compared to an OECD average of 1.2 percent.
Where Norway performed poorly when it came to drugs was in the 49.1 people who died from opioids a year per 100,000 of the population.
This was well above the OECD average of 29.7, although still far behind the crisis-hit US, which had 223 deaths per 100,000, Estonia with 130.4, or Canada with 75.7 deaths. It was more or less in line with Sweden , which had 50.4 deaths, and just below Finland's 56.5 deaths.
According to the OECD's summary of Norway's results, the country also performed well on the quality of its health service, boasting, for example, nearly double the number of nurses as the OECD average.
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