Expect More Obese People By 2025

More people will be obese come 2025. A study on weight trends revealed that the epidemic of obesity is starting to become a problem for a lot of countries.

A study published by The Lancet showed that the weight problem is slowly getting worse. By 2025, it indicated that 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women will weigh more than their normal weight.

"We have transitioned from a world in which underweight prevalence was more than double that of obesity to one in which more people are obese than underweight," said senior author and Imperial College London professor Majid Ezzati. The study also noted that for the past 40 years, obesity has tripled among men and doubled among women.

Taking into account body mass index trends from 1975 to 2014, the research noted that there will be more obese people than underweight ones in the coming years. It claimed that past records have already revealed that obese people outnumber those who are underweight.

"The United States still takes the cake," a CNN report says. "More than one in four severely obese men and one in five severely obese women lives in the country."

Ezzati told The Guardian that there is a lot to be done to battle obesity. "We need coordinated global initiatives - such as looking at the price of healthy food compared to unhealthy food, or taxing high sugar and highly processed foods - to tackle this crisis," added the professor.

It was also noted in the same report the United Kingdom provides a good example on how a country can battle obesity. The U.K. has recently announced that it will start imposing tax on sugar.

Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health professor Neena Modi told The Guardian that research on reducing childhood obesity risks is also vital. "The more that is known about underlying causes, the better this worldwide crisis be addressed," she added.