A “huge increase” in heart attacks, strokes and diabetes has resulted due to the quantum leap in the number of overweight people
A “huge increase” in heart attacks, strokes and diabetes has resulted due to the quantum leap in the number of overweight people. Reuters

A recent global survey involving 188 countries has provided a startling revelation on the health condition of Australians - Australians are getting fatter and fatter at a rate that is rivaling the United States of America.

The international report Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 been published in The Lancet has found an increase in mean BMI in all regions worldwide.

According to Science Codex, the data shows that there is a 28 per cent increase in adults and a 47 per cent increase in children in the last three decades with the total number of overweight and obese people rapidly increasing from about 850 million in 1980 to a staggering 2.1 billion in 2013. With the women's obesity levels experiencing the highest increase in the countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Honduras and Bahrain, and among men in New Zealand, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) higher than 30 and in Australia specifically, the rate of obesity has grown by more than 80 per cent over the past three decades with 11 million Australian adults needing to lose weight, half of which are severely overweight.

Nutritionist Jennie Brand-Miller of the University of Sydney reveals that obesity is in fact becoming an intergenerational issue, reports The Australian. There is a growing trend of obese parents raising obese children with poor diets, sedentary lifestyles and bad sleeping habits contributing to the situation.

Australia has ranked 30th in the obesity ranking globally, concludes The Guardian While the country has not surpassed the United States, it has overtaken Britain, France and Germany, to name a few, with almost one-fourth of all young Australians considered overweight, the country's youth ranked52nd .

Simply put, almost one of every three Australians is obese; these results intensify the need for government to strategise how to restore healthy eating habits and compel better nutrition in products as well as advertising.

With a culture of unhealthy eating lambasted and a growing culture of over-consumption, the trend of obesity will have a grave impact on the health care system due to the burden of diabetes, physical abilities and heart disease.