Only a few weeks ago, Amsterdam was ranked as the best city in the world for living a happy and healthy life. Now it's not just the Dutch capital that will be able to claim such a success, as the Netherlands has been ranked as one of the world's healthiest countries to live in!

Compare the Market Australia: The World’s Healthiest Countries

Staying healthy and keeping fit can be challenging at the best of times - especially now living in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic - and so Compare the Market Australia decided to look at which countries around the world are the most successful in encouraging and fostering a healthy lifestyle. 

Data was gathered via the World Health Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Each country examined was given a normalised score out of 10 across eight different factors:

• Life expectancy
• Vaccination rate - the percentage of children receiving the rubella vaccine and the final dose of the measles vaccine
• Percentage of smokers - the percentage of the population over the age of 15 who use any tobacco product
• Alcohol consumption - the number of litres of pure alcohol sold per person over the age of 15
• Probability of premature death - the probability of dying between the ages of 30 and 70 from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease
• Prevalence of obesity among adults - the percentage of the population with a BMI of 30 or higher
• Prevalence of insufficient physical activity among adults - the percentage of adults deemed to carry out insufficient physical activity
• Access to basic drinking water - the percentage of the population with access to at least basic drinking water services

Eastern Asia performed well, with Japan and South Korea nabbing the top two spots, as did Europe, with 13 out of the top 20 being European countries. Japan was named as the healthiest country and the country with the highest life expectancy, while Colombia had the lowest tobacco use. 

The Netherlands as the world’s eighth healthiest country to live in

The Netherlands wasn’t the top-performing European country - that honour goes to Finland - but it still managed to achieve a very respectable ranking. 

Categories in which the Netherlands performed particularly well were life expectancy (81,9 years), obesity levels (20,4 percent), physical activity among adults (only 27,2 percent aren’t sufficiently active), and access to drinking water (100 percent). 

Healthiest countries in the world 

According to the ranking, the top 10 healthiest countries in the world are: 

1. Japan - 79,2 out of 100
2. South Korea - 78,76
3. Finland - 77
4. Norway - 75,88
5. Sweden - 75,38
6. Switzerland - 74,46
7. Costa Rica - 72,09
8. The Netherlands - 71,35
9. Denmark - 71,35
10. China - 71,17

The least healthy countries were South Africa (28,33), Brazil (47,03) and Indonesia (49,87). For more information about the ranking, visit Compare the Market Australia’s website.