Mexico Is Now Most Overweight Industrialized Nation

Mexico tops the list of the world's most overweight industrialized nations, bumping the United States down to a close second.

According to a recent United Nations and Food Agricultural Organization report, nearly a third of Mexican adults are obese, compared to 31.8 percent in the U.S. Childhood obesity tripled in a decade and about a third of teenagers are also fat.

Obesity is a worldwide problem with rates doubling since 1980. In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults were overweight and 500 million were obese.

However, neither Mexico nor the United States top the worldwide obesity list. According to the FAO, some Pacific Island countries and territories have higher obesity rates, such as Nauru at 71.1 percent and the Cook Islands at 64.1 percent.

High-calorie, cheap processed foods and a rising sedentary lifestyle due to an increasingly wealthy, urban population are the forces behind Mexico's rise in obesity. And the risk, according to the World Health organization, is higher changes of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, degenerative joint diseases and some cancers.

But terrible eating habits for those with low incomes also has a role in Mexico's increasing obesity rates.

"The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese," physician Abelardo Avila with Mexico's National Nutrition Institute told CBS News. "In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It's a very serious epidemic.

"They are exposed to high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, energy-dense ... foods which tend to be lower in cost but also lower in nutrient quality," the World Health Organization stated.

Weight-related diabetes is the top killer for Mexicans each year, and heart and related ailments are among the rest of the country's top killers.