The number of obese people worldwide had risen from 105 million in 1975 to 641 million in 2014. This equates to 266 million obese men and 375 million obese women in the world in 2014 and includes many male world politicians.
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This means that there are now more adults in the world classified as obese than underweight .... a startling idea.
- Fact: More obese men and women now live in China and the USA than in any other countries. These are also the two biggest world economies.
- Fact: In India (which is expected to become the third biggest economy later this century), being underweight remains a significant health problem.
- Fact: Almost a fifth of the world's obese adults live in only six high-income English-speaking countries - Australia, Canada, Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, UK, and the US ... shameful.
- Fact: Women in the UK have the third highest BMI in Europe and by 2025 the UK is projected to have the highest levels of obese women in Europe (38%), followed by Republic of Ireland (37%) and Malta (34%).
So over 40 years we have transitioned from a world in which underweight prevalence was more than double that of obesity to essentially the opposite ... so much perhaps for Thomas Malthus and his predictions .... at least for now.
Shocking figures. I imagine that the environmental impact is exponential as bigger people = bigger clothes = more material = bigger transport costs and heavier people = heavier vehicles = more carburant, etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that the net cost to the NHS is beneficial as the obese die earlier, I'm not sure I believe that.
They don't seem to die younger. There is a man at work who is easily 25 stone plus. He needs a stick to walk and is at or above the limit for the office chairs. A real life monster ...
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