Gender split
Researchers across the world were led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Washington, in a study they said is the most comprehensive to date.
Scientists analysed data from surveys, such as from the World Health Organization, government websites, and reviewed “all articles” about the numbers of obese or overweight people in the world.
The study said rates of obesity were rising across the world, although the rates in developed countries remain the highest.
More than half of the world’s 671 million obese people live in 10 countries, ranked in order:
US
China
India
Russia
Brazil
Mexico
Egypt
Germany
Pakistan
Indonesia
(Source: The Lancet)
The UK has the third highest rates in Western Europe, with 67% of men and 57% of women overweight or obese, it said.
The study called for “urgent global leadership” to combat risk factors such as excessive calorie intake, inactivity, and “active promotion of food consumption by industry”.
Prof Ali Mokdad, of the IHME, said no country was beating obesity as it was a relatively new problem.
Prof Hermann Toplak, at the University of Graz, in Austria, said: “Over the past decades the modernisation of our world, with all the technology around us, has led to physical inactivity on all levels.”
Inactivity caused self-control to spiral, he said.
Children and adults were not building up enough functioning muscle mass, and “classical eating” had been replaced by “uncontrolled food intake” spread over the day. he said.
