Obesity becoming a global problem

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People are getting fatter in all parts of the world, with the possible exception of east Asia, doctors found in a one-day global snapshot of obesity.

Overall, 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women seeing their doctors that day were obese, and another 30 percent of men and 40 percent of women were overweight, the researchers found.

That puts the rest of the world close to par with the United States, long considered the country with the worst weight problem. An estimated two-thirds of Americans are overweight and a third of these are obese.

"The study results show that excess body weight is pandemic, with one-half to two-thirds of the overall study population being overweight or obese," said Beverley Balkau, director of research at the French National health research institute INSERM in Villejuif, who led the study published in the journal Circulation.

People who are overweight have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

Balkau and colleagues evaluated 168,159 adults who happened to be seeing their primary care doctors in 63 countries across five continents -- but not the United States --in 2006.

In all regions except southern and eastern Asia, 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women were either overweight or obese, they found.

This was measured using body mass index, or BMI, which calculates height to weight and is considered an accurate way of assessing overweight in most adults except highly muscled athletes.