Italy is home to some of the best cuisine in the world. Food is deeply embedded into their culture and the classic Italian diet encompasses plenty of vegetables, olive oil, pasta, lean meats and fresh fish. This resulted in Italians having lower blood pressure and cholesterol than other developed nations.
Italy is known for its generally very good health system, and the life expectancy is 80 for males and 85 for females, placing the country 5th in the world for life expectancy, and low infant mortality.
Mediterranean diet
As the renowned medical journal Lancet points out, eating habits play a key role when it comes to Italians and longevity. A large part of the population can easily bring fresh and healthy food to the table, regardless of social status and income. This is what makes the difference.
They live with a sense that there will be time for everything. And this decreases the level of stress. Somehow even with their long siesta and with often being late Italians are not in a rush, and as a result they are much less stressed and happier than people in many other cultures.
As mouth-wateringly tasty as Italian food is, it is very high in calories and salt. This is likely because of the inclusion of rich flavors and ingredients, such as cheese. Cheese is found in a lot of different Italian dishes, adding to the fat, salt, and calorie content of a dish.
Have you ever wondered why the Italian do not get fat despite an abundance of pizza, pasta, and dairy? Well, it is because of the Mediterranean diet! People in Italy enjoy a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, beans, tomatoes, poultry, whole grains, olive oil, red wine, dairy ― and they consume very little red meat.
According to Eva, the answer is that they use a different type of flour – Italian bread and pasta are made of durum wheat flour which doesn't spike your blood sugar levels as much and therefore it doesn't significantly contribute to weight gain as much as regular refined white flour would, for example.
Italians are known to be very devoted to their food and they love seasonal and fresh ingredients. Their foods contain little or no fatty creams and oils and are always in fairly sized portions. These eating habits are basically the proper way a person should eat if such a person chooses to eat healthy.
Chart and table of Italy life expectancy from 1950 to 2023. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100. The current life expectancy for Italy in 2023 is 84.00 years, a 0.17% increase from 2022.
Don't point to people: Italians don't like people pointing to them with their fingers. It makes them feel like animals at a zoo. Ask for permission before photographing someone: For the same reason, you should always ask their permission before taking a photo of someone.
On life expectancy we came 14th - slipping down two places since 1990. Italy, by contrast, rose from 5th to 2nd - ahead of France, Germany, and Sweden.
Italians, French, Greeks, Spanish, Croatians, and Israelis all enjoy high life expectancy, and good health with overall fewer health problems than their American counterparts due to their very simple common sense approach to food and lifestyle.
Sarah Medland, approximately 17% of Italians have curly hair. Overall, 45% of European people have straight hair, 40% have wavy, and 15% have curly hair. Therefore, Italians are slightly above the European curly hair average. Italian genes have adapted to both the northern and southern climates of Italy.
About 1 in 10 people is obese in Italy, significantly less than the OECD average of 1 in 6. More than 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women are overweight.
In the 'health' department, Greek is in fact superior to all cuisines when considering nutritional and health benefits which lead to longevity as confirmed in many scientific studies. With fewer sauces and more vegetables than Italian, the Greek cuisine is very attractive to vegetarians as well.
Italy is the world's healthiest country, according to the CEOWORLD magazine ranking that uses data from the United Nations Population Division, the World Bank, the Lancet study, and the World Health Organisation, with Singapore coming at a close second.
In Europe, Italians have the highest genetic diversity. The gradient of their genetic variability, scattered all over the peninsula, encloses on a small scale the whole genetic variance between southern and continental Europeans.
Asian people have the longest average life expectancy (83.5 years) and American Indian/Alaska Natives the shortest (65.2 years).
Living to 83 on average, the Japanese have long had one of the highest life expectancies. Okinawa, often called 'the land of immortals', has been a global centre for longevity research, as these southern Japanese islands have more than 400 centenarians.
Italians are known for having high cheekbones and a strong jawline, giving them sharp-looking facial features. What is this? Coupled with their dark hair and eyes, plus their auquiline noses, Italians can give off an imposing aura when they wear a serious expression.
A typical Italian diet consists of three meals in a day. The most common foods in the Italian diet include pasta, cheese, vegetables, olive oil, meats, and wine. Italians give a lot of importance to fresh ingredients.
A typical Italian breakfast is a cappuccino, espresso with croissant, bread with butter, jam, or Nutella. Additionally, if you're making your breakfast in Italy at home, you will most likely find cereals or Mulino Bianco biscuits.
Breakfast is not the main meal of the day in Italy – it's more like a quick burst of energy to get you going in the morning not a feast to linger over. Italians have dinner quite late at night – so, the idea is that they don't need to load themselves with heavy food first thing in the morning.
South Asians ate the most carbohydrate and had the lowest HDL cholesterol levels, while Chinese individuals ate the least carbohydrate and had the highest levels of the beneficial blood fat, Dr. Anwar T. Merchant of the Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario and colleagues found.
Eating so late at night means Italians don't wake up hungry in the morning, therefore a light breakfast of coffee and cake is enjoyed as a “morning snack” and is preferred to protein-packed heavy American or English breakfast options. You might wonder about the benefit of starting your day eating cake.