Living in an obese world: Human population 15M tons overweight
Seventeen year-old Marissa Hamilton stands on a scale during her weekly weigh-in at the Wellspring Academy in Reedley, California, a special school that helps teens and college level students lose weight along with academic courses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 percent of children in the US ages 6-19 years are overweight or obese, three times as many since 1980.
The weight of the global population has hit 287 million tons, according to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The group estimated that 15 million tons of this mass is due to people being overweight, and 3.5 million tons due to obesity.
According to the BBC, the group also said the extra weight is equivalent to an extra half a billion people.
In the research paper published in the journal BMC Public Health, the group noted that the UN projects that by 2050 there could be an additional 2.3 billion people on earth. It added that, "The ecological implications of rising population numbers will be exacerbated by increases in average body mass."
North America tipped the scales as the heaviest region on Earth, with nearly one-third of the population coming in as overweight, or obese, according to LiveScience.
LiveScience also shared more about America's growing waistline with this infographic:
Source:LiveScience
More from GlobalPost: Fat and fatter: the world's 10 fattest countries 2010
The research group also noted that while the health of the population is of utmost importance, the food supply comes in a close second.
"Increasing biomass will have important implications for global resource requirements, including food demand and the overall ecological footprint of our species," the group wrote according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Everyone accepts that population growth threatens global environmental sustainability – our study shows that population fatness is also a major threat," Professor Ian Roberts, who led the research at LSHTM said. He added, "Unless we tackle both population and fatness, our chances are slim."
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