During the last three decades, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled, and the mean body mass index has increased worldwide by 0.4 kg/m2 per decade for men and 0.5 kg/m2 per decade for women [1,2], and continues to increase globally. The Global Burden of Disease study recently published [3] showed a greater increase in the rate of exposure to high body mass index than in the rate of the related disease burden. The study, in which researchers assembled data from 195 countries to model trends in overweight and obesity and related morbidity and mortality, showed that the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980 and is now 5% in children and 12% in adults, closely mirroring similar global trends in type 2 diabetes.
