World Now Has increased Overweight Than Underweight People, Says Study

An alarming obesity rates in the past 40 years increased

LONDON: More than 640 million people worldwide now weigh as obese and the world has more overweight than underweight people, according to an analysis of global trends in body mass index (BMI).

An alarming obesity rates in the past 40 years increased: the number of people with a BMI over 30 has increased from 105 million in 1975 to 641 million in 2014, the study found. More than one in 10 men and one in seven women are obese.

BMI is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by height in meters squared, and is an indication of whether a person is a healthy weight. A BMI greater than 25 are overweight, over 30 is overweight and over 40 is morbidly obese.

"The number of people around the world whose weight poses a serious threat to your health is greater than ever before," said Majid Ezzati, a professor at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London.

"And this epidemic of severe obesity is too broad to be addressed with medications such as low blood pressure drugs or treatments for diabetes alone, or with some additional bike lanes."

To try to make a real difference, Ezzati said it was necessary to adopt comprehensive measures coordinated, including the fight against pricing healthy foods compared to unhealthy, or encumber high blood sugar and highly processed foods.

However, too low body weight remains a serious public health problem in the world's poorest regions, the study authors said, and rising global obesity trends should not obscure the problem that many people do not get enough to eat.

In South Asia, for example, nearly a quarter of the population is underweight. In East Africa, about 12 percent of women and 15 percent of men and core are underweight.

The study, published Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet, involved the World Health Organization and more than 700 researchers from around the world. data on weight and height of nearly 20 million adults in 186 countries analyzed.

It was found that over the past four decades, the average age male-corrected BMI increased to 24.2 from 21.7, and women rose to 24.4 from 22.1.

This is equivalent to the population of the world becoming an average of 1.5 kg heavier per decade, the researchers said.

They predicted that if these global trends continue, 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women will be obese by 2025.

Other key findings of the study were that:

* Japanese adults had a BMI of the lowest of all high-income countries, while American adults had the highest BMI.

* More obese men and women now living in China and the United States than in any other country.

* The lowest BMI of Europe were among Swiss women and men in Bosnia. Men in Britain were 10 higher BMI women in Europe and the third highest in Europe.

* Morbid obesity, where the weight of a person interferes with basic physical functions such as breathing and walking, now affects about 1 percent of men and 2 percent of women. In total, 55 million adults are morbidly obese.