A new study claims that there are now more obese adults (more than 640 million, according to Yahoo! News) than underweight adults in the world, BuzzFeed News reports.
The study published in The Lancet, looked at BMI trends in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014. A healthy body weight is between a BMI of 18.5 and 24.9, according to the CDC. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, and anything above 30 is considered obese. The study’s findings show that between the dates given, the total number of people with a BMI of 30 or more has jumped 510.5 percent, Yahoo! News reports.
A BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, according to the CDC, and it is an issue largely associated with malnutrition, a problem that is prevalent in regions like South Asia and Central and East Africa, Yahoo! News reports.
Researchers interpret the data to mean that if current trends continue, the prevalence of obesity in men around the world will grow to 18 percent and 21 percent in women, in just nine years, according to the study.