According to a new study just released, over 640 million people across the world are now in the obese category, and the shocking news is the number if continuing to climb, despite doctors raising awareness of the health problems associated with being overweight.
A story on Fox News says the number of people with a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 has jumped from 105 million in 1975 to 641 million, as of 2014. The study found more that 10 percent of all men are obese, and the news is worse for women, since one of every seven women were also found to be in the obese category.
The study involved over 700 researchers across the globe, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), and analyzed data on over 20 million adults from 186 countries, evaluating their height and weight to calculate their BMI.
BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms, by their height in meters squared, and is generally used to identify if a person is obese or overweight. A BMI of 25-29 is considered overweight. 30-39 as obese, and 40 and over as morbidly obese.
The study found 55 million adults were classified as morbidly obese, some one percent of men and two percent of women. Being morbidly obese can interfere with a person’s basic life functions, including walking and, in some cases, actually breathing.
The findings also showed China and the United States had the highest numbers of men and women classified as obese, with the US leading the way with the highest BMIs. Japan was the country with the lowest BMIs, and the Swiss women and Bosnian men recorded the lowest BMIs on the European continent.
Over the past 40 years, the average age-corrected BMI jumped from 21.7 to 24.2 for male adults, and women’s BMIs rose from 22.1 to 24.4 over the same period. The researchers predicted that 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women would be categorized as obese by the year 2025, if the current trends continue.
Findings of the study were published in The Lancet medical journal on Thursday.