THE world is getting fatter and it’s not just rich westerners who are at risk. A global epidemic of fast food and increasingly sedentary lifestyles is taking its toll on poorer countries too. A staggering 1 billion of the world’s 6.45 billion people are now overweight, warns the World Health Organization, and if the trend continues the figure will rise to 1.5 billion by 2015.
“The sheer magnitude of the overweight and obesity problem is staggering,” says Catherine Le Galès-Camus of the WHO. The rise in obesity in many low and middle income countries will create an overwhelming burden of chronic disease if nothing is done,…
