Obesity "epidemic" now world-wide phenomenon

Instead of the rest of the world poking fun at how fat Americans are, the rest of the world is hurrying to catch up:

Between half and two-thirds of men and women in 63 countries across five continents — not including the US — were overweight or obese in 2006.

The Circulation journal study included over 168,000 people evaluated by a primary care doctor.

Experts said the findings were deeply worrying.

Of course, this is all revolving around the increase in BMI numbers, which are not necessarily a good proxy for general health (I've dissed BMI a few times before).

Canada and South Africa are joint leaders in the world-wide waist-expansion sweepstakes:

Just 7% of people in eastern Asia were obese, compared to 36% of people seeing their doctors in Canada, 38% of women in Middle Eastern countries and 40% in South Africa.

Canada and South Africa led in the percentage of overweight people, with an average BMI of 29 among both men and women in Canada and 29 among South African women.

It's not clear that these numbers are totally valid: they encompass a large number of people, but these are the people who happened to visit their primary care provider on a particular day.