Weight a minute — the number of obese people in the world has, for the first time, caught up with the number who are underfed.
There are 1.2 billion overfed or obese adults — equal to the number who have too little to eat, according to the Worldwatch Institute in Washington.
Even poor countries are piling on the pounds as populations move from the country to the more sedentary city life, according to the institute’s study of eating habits.
Experts say the only remedy is to encourage people to exercise more — including walking instead of driving, and participating more in sports.
The results come three months after a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that 18 percent of Americans are obese, up from 12 percent in 1991.
That study predicted that Americans’ scale-tipping trends would continue in the new millennium.
Worldwatch, a research group, says its new statistics, published yesterday in London’s Sunday Times, show obesity has risen particularly in Britain, with half of all adults there now too fat. British obesity rates have doubled in a decade.
And South American countries are quickly catching up.
In Brazil, for example, 31 percent of the population is overweight, and in Colombia, the figure is 43 percent — even though millions in both countries endure crushing poverty.
In China, which traditionally had a healthier, vegetable-based diet, the number of overweight people jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent between the late 1980s and the early 1990s.
Worldwatch says worse health problems are to come.
Babies malnourished in the womb and born underweight carry a high risk of developing conditions such as diabetes and heart disease in later life if they overeat.
“There are many fewer people who have to walk miles every day to get water or firewood and, given their much lower exercise rate, their food intake becomes adequate or even excessive,” nutrition expert David Barker said.