"The country that gave the world The Body, Sylvania Waters and Les Patterson has been ranked first overall in a study of the seven deadly sins - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride," according to 'Courier Mail' newspaper that qouted the latest edition of BBC's focus magazine.

Australia took out the dubious honour in the edition of BBC's magazine of science, technology and the future.

While US topped the table for gluttony, South Korea topped the list for lust.
Iceland ranked number one for both pride and sloth and Mexico topped the list for greed, the study revealed.

Australia's biggest weakness was envy and ranked in the top 10 in all categories to give a higher aggregate than the US, Canada, Finland or Britain.

The article, which argues that people are "bad" by nature, has found social data to compare nations under the categories of wrath, sloth, pride, lust, greed, gluttony and envy. The report said the to determine country's wrongdoings, the researchers studied levels of violent crime by comparing incidents of assault, rape and murder per 1000 people.

For sloth, they looked at the number of days off workers have. For pride the comparison was made on plastic surgery rates per capita, and for lust they looked at the amount people spent on porn.

Greed was determined by the percentage of the population with annual earnings less than 50 per cent of the median value, gluttony was found by calculating how much per capita a nation wasted on calorie-rich fast food, and envy was described as being jealous of others' possessions and calculated using statistics for burglary, robbery and car theft.

For each of the sins, the researchers awarded 10 points to the nation with the highest score, and then decreasing points to countries that, for each sin, could boast of being in the top 10.

The results rank a top nation for each sin. Australians, perhaps reflecting the tall poppy syndrome, are the best when it comes to envy.

Overall, Australians are also the best, or perhaps worst, sinners, scoring 46 points, ahead of the US on 32 points and Canada on 24.

The UK came sixth overall. Meanwhile, Brisbane Anglican Bishop Geoff Smith said that we were all sinners but should strive to be better people and care for one another.

"I think Australians are very generous and compassionate people with a special identity," he said adding "In many ways the Australian lifestyle and character make us the envy of other nations."

Australia was ranked third for lust and gluttony, fourth for greed and pride, seventh for wrath and ninth for sloth.