There’s not a single country that has succeeded in reducing obesity in the past 33 years
This picture taken on Oct. 11, 2011, shows a Chinese boy participating in a weight loss program at a hospital in Beijing.
The latest study on the global obesity pandemic is, quite frankly, scary.
No matter how many times governments and health experts tell us to eat low-fat food and exercise regularly, we just keep getting fatter and fatter and fatter.
How much fatter, you ask?
The number of overweight or obese people hit 2.1 billion in 2013, more than double the 857 million recorded in 1980, according to the study led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
That means nearly one-third of the planet's population is overweight or obese.
And the increase is not only due to population growth, with the proportion of men and women considered overweight or obese rising significantly.
Overweight is defined as a body mass index of 25 or greater, while obesity is defined as a BMI of at least 30.
But here's the really scary bit:
“No country had significant decreases in obesity in the past 33 years," the study said. "Unlike other major global risks such as tobacco and childhood malnutrition, obesity is not decreasing worldwide.
"Urgent action and leadership is needed to help countries to more effectively intervene.”
Here are some of the other shocking findings.
More than half of the world’s 671 million obese lived in 10 countries in 2013: US, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia.
36.9 percent of men were overweight or obese in 2013, compared with 28.8 percent in 1980.
The proportion of women in the same category rose to 38 percent in 2013 from 29.8 percent in 1980.
The prevalence of overweight or obese children soared to 47.1 percent over the 33-year period. It rose by 27.5 percent for adults.
13 percent of the world’s obese individuals lived in the United States in 2013, more than any other country.
Almost 2 out of 3 of the obese lived in the developing world in 2013.
More men than women are overweight or obese in developed countries. The opposite is true in developing countries.
The US, Australia and Britain were among the countries that saw the biggest increases in obesity for men and women over the 33-year period.
Even in southern sub-Saharan Africa, where countries are battling malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, obesity is a major problem. Thirty-seven percent of women and nearly 12 percent of men fall into that category.
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