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Comment by achow | Hacker News Reader

> …rising global trends in obesity should not overshadow the problem of many people not getting enough to eat. In South Asia, for example, almost a quarter of the population is underweight. In Central and East Africa, about 12 percent of women and 15 percent of men are underweight.

The increase in the obesity gets even more alarming if one considers that out of ~7 Billion world population, one can take ~3 Billion people (India + China + Central Africa) out of the equation as they are affected less than others (the first infographics also supports this notion).

641M of 7B = 10%

600M of 4B = 15%

(Approx numbers just for getting some ballpark indicators)

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India+China+Central Africa may be less affected than the rest of the world, but I doubt there are only 41M obese people there. The map shows that in China there are 8.2%/7.4% obese men/women (or maybe the other way around; I have no idea how to interpret the button). So that's 7.8% of 1.381 billion = ~108 million in China alone.

From the article: "More obese men and women now live in China and the United States than in any other country."

Yes saw that. But the infographic shows that China is relatively 'green' than other parts of the world (along with India and Central Africa).

My takeway from it (could be wrong) is that in absolute numbers there would be more obese people in china than say in some countries in middle east, but as a percentage of population they are small.

I knew from other other readings that in China this is due to younger generation.

"Within one generation, the percentage of Chinese children who are overweight or obese has skyrocketed from 5% to 20%. The rate has absolutely exploded, over a very limited amount of time." http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-...

Even worse, if you take thin and moderate weight people out of the equation, the pervasiveness of obesity shoots up to 100%.

To be fair BMI is not perfect. All your gym rats get lumped in Obese for example.

There are also many skinny people who eat nothing but dorritos and are skinnyweak. They don't make the Obese charts but they are no more healthy.

The fact of the matter is that people need to own their health.

To be fair BMI is not perfect. All your gym rats get lumped in Obese for example.

Not really. To get to obese by gaining muscle mass one would most certainly have to use certain illegal drugs.

Someone cared to downvote. So I made a random Google search and came up with this guy, who is 5'8 and 210 pounds in contest state

http://www.bodybuilding.com/author/john-hansen

Which puts him at 31 BMI, so just barely in the obese category.

And this guy is clearly not your average "gym rat", he's a winner of Natural Mr. Universe, so he'll be somewhere on the very edge of the Bell curve. 99.9% gym rats will never be close in terms of lean body mass. So if they are "lumped in obese", then they truly have a lot of fat to lose.

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