Overweight Now a Global Problem ( About a quarter of the world's adults...)

Overweight Now a Global Problem

Date:10/22/2007

About a quarter of the world's adults are obese, study finds

MONDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Worldwide, 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women are now overweight, and 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women are obese, say researchers who looked at data from 63 countries.

The study included information on more than 168,000 men and women ages 18-80 (average age 48), living on five continents. All of them were evaluated by their family doctors.

The findings are published in this week's issue of the journal Circulation.

"The study results show that excess body weight is pandemic, with one-half to two-thirds of the overall study population being overweight or obese," lead author Beverley Balkau, director of research at INSERM in France, said in a prepared statement. INSERM is the French equivalent of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

She noted that obesity has become a major clinical and public health problem in many countries.

The data collected from the International Day for Evaluation of Abdominal Obesity also found that 56 percent of men and 71 percent of women had abdominal adiposity (excess fat), which significantly increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

In this study, abdominal adiposity was determined by measuring waist circumference.

"For men, each increase (in waist circumference) of approximately 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) means an increased frequency of about 35 percent for heart disease and for women an increase of approximately six inches (15 centimeters) equates to a 40 percent increase for heart disease. Even in people who are lean, an increasing waist circumference means increasing risk for heart disease and diabetes," Balkau said.

Rates of obesity -- a body mass index of 30 or more -- varied between regions, ranging from a low of 7 percent in men and women in South and East Asia to 36 percent in Canadian men
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