More than one billion people worldwide live with obesity, according to global estimates published in a medical journal Lancet (The Lancet).
This includes about 880 million adults and 159 million children, according to data from 2022.
The highest rates were recorded in Tonga and American Samoa for women, and in American Samoa and Nauru for men, with about 70 to 80 percent of adults living with obesity.
An international team of scientists says there is an urgent need for major changes in the way we fight obesity.
Obesity can increase the risk of developing many serious health conditions, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.
By ranking global obesity rates (the percentage of the population classified as obese, after age differences are taken into account), the researchers found:
- The United States is ranked 10th for men and 36th for women;
- India ranks lowest at 19th for women and 21st for men;
- China is 11th for women and 52nd for men.
Senior researcher Professor Majid Ezati, from Imperial College London, told the BBC: "In many of these island states, it comes down to the availability of healthy junk food."
"In some cases there have been aggressive marketing campaigns promoting unhealthy foods, while the cost and availability of healthier foods can be more problematic."
Professor Ezati, who has been tracking global data for years, says he is surprised at how quickly the picture has changed, because many more countries are now facing an obesity crisis, while the number of places where underweight is considered the biggest problem has fallen.
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The report, which covers the period from 1990 to 2022, found that obesity rates have quadrupled among children and adolescents.
Meanwhile, among adults, the rate more than doubled in women and nearly tripled in men.
At the same time, the proportion of adults classified as undernourished has dropped by 50 percent, but the researchers stress that it remains a pressing problem, especially among the poorest communities.
The Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that "the new study highlights the importance of preventing and managing obesity from early to adulthood, through nutrition, physical activity and adequate care".
He added that this will require the work of governments and communities and that "the cooperation of the private sector, which must be responsible for the impact of their products on health, is important."
Study co-author Dr Guha Pradipa, from the Diabetes Research Foundation in Madras, says there is a risk that major global problems will make the condition worse.
"The impact of issues such as climate change, the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine risk exacerbating obesity and malnutrition rates, increasing poverty and the cost of nutrient-dense food," she said.
"The end effects of this are insufficient food in some countries and households and a shift to less healthy food in others."
A network of more than 1.500 researchers, in collaboration with the WHO, analyzed the height and weight measurements of around 220 million people over the age of five.
The unit of measurement was body mass index.
While they admit this is an imperfect measure of body fat, and say some countries had better data than others, they say it's the most widely used, making this global analysis possible.
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