This from BMC Public
Health:
"Increasing population fatness could have the
same implications for world food energy demands as an extra half a billion
people living on the earth."
This is the conclusion of a group of
researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who
say that people’s weight – not just population size – should be taken into
account when planning how to deal with increasing pressure on the planet’s
dwindling resources.
Key findings:
•
In 2005, global adult human biomass was
approximately 287 million tonnes, of which 15 million tonnes were due to
overweight (BMI > 25), a mass equivalent to that of 242 million people of
average body mass (5% of global human biomass).
•
Biomass due to obesity was 3.5 million tonnes, the
mass equivalent of 56 million people of average body mass (1.2% of human
biomass).
•
North America has 6% of the world population but
34% of biomass due to obesity.
•
Asia has 61% of the world population but 13% of
biomass due to obesity.
•
One tonne of human biomass corresponds to
approximately 12 adults in North America and 17 adults in Asia.
•
If all countries had the BMI distribution of the
United States, the increase in human biomass of 58 million tonnes would be
equivalent in mass to an extra 935 million people of average body mass, and
have energy requirements equivalent to that of 473 million adults.
Key facts from the World Health
Organisation:
•
a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight
•
a BMI greater than or equal to 30 is obesity.
More key facts:
•
Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980.
•
In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults, 20 and
older, were overweight. Of these over 200 million men and nearly 300 million
women were obese.
•
65% of the world's population live in countries
where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.
•
More than 40 million children under the age of five
were overweight in 2010.
Obesity is preventable.
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