London, April 1 (IANS) A study published on Friday by British medical journal The Lancet has revealed that in 2025 a fifth of the world population will be obese if the rate of overweight people continues to increase at the current rate.
The study, which analyses trends in the global and regional level of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in adults over 18 years between 1975 and 2014, concluded that between these two years the number of obese people has increased from 105 million to 641 million worldwide, Efe news agency reported.
Specifically, the proportion of obese men has tripled, from 3.2 percent to 10.8, and women has doubled from 6.4 percent to 14.9 over the past 39 years, while the proportion of people below the recommended weight fell a third in both men, 13.8 percent to 8.8, and women 14.6 to 9.7.
The Lancet projects that by 2025 at least 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women will be obese.
China in 2014 has the highest number of overweight people with 43.2 million men and 46.4 million women, followed by the US with 41.7 million men and 46.1 million women with obesity.
