Data presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), held in Boston, show that the obesity epidemic is spreading rapidly throughout the world and that it is particularly severely affecting the Poor countries.
The adoption of Western lifestyles is probably the cause of overweight and obesity becoming more prevalent across the planet.
According to Dr. Barry Popkin, from the University of North Carolina (United States), in the Third World there are between 10 and 12 countries with a prevalence of overweight and obesity that exceeds even that of the United States.
For example, he explained, 70% of adult Egyptian women are overweight, as are half of men. In Mexico, prevalence rates are virtually the same as in the United States, but they are increasing at a faster rate.
More sedentary forms of work, adoption of Western-type diets, lack of exercise, influence of television, etc., are factors that can be classified as culprits for this situation, in the opinion of experts.
According to researchers, in the poorest countries, the richest people are the ones who tend to be overweight. However, as the country’s overall wealth increases, it is the most disadvantaged sectors of the population that are most likely to be obese and overweight, especially in urban areas.
Other data presented by experts from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) show the case of a Pacific island, Raratonga, where in 1966 14% of men and 44% of women were obese. By 1996, the rates had increased dramatically, rising to 52% for men and 57% for women.
