Over 700 million obese adults now and trending to over 1.5 billion obese adults by 2025

If global post-2000 fattening trends continue, by 2025, global obesity prevalence will reach 18% in men and surpass 21% in women; severe obesity will surpass 6% in men and 9% in women. Nonetheless, underweight remains prevalent in the world’s poorest regions, especially in south Asia.

The percentage of men who were obese in 2014 (10.7%) is three times what it was in 1975 (3.3%) and the proportion of women who were obese in 2014 (14.9%) was twice what it was in 1975 (6.4%).

Of these countries, the US has the highest of average BMI both for men and women. More than one in four severely obese men and about one in five severely obese women in the world live in the US. The UK comes next, followed by Canada.

The team predicts that, by 2025, about 43% of US women and 45% of US men could be obese. The UK is estimated to have the highest levels (38%) of obese women in Europe.