With much of the focus resting on under-nutrition and micronutrients defi ciency, it is easy to dismiss obesity as nothing but a disease peculiar to affl uent nations. However, experts warned that obesity is reaching an epidemic proportion, and should thus be treated as a valid health concern.
Consider these statistics: in 2005, 1.6 billion adults over the age of 15 are overweight and at least 400 million of this number is obese. By 2015, the World Health Organization calculates the number of overweight adults to increase to 2.3 billion, with 700 million of them clinically obese. Each year at least 2.6 million people die from health complications resulting from all the excessive weight.
