Kim Jong-un is putting his health at serious risk due to his dangerously high consumption of Emmental cheese, it has been claimed.

The 31-year-old North Korean leader got a taste for the cheese while a student in Switzerland - and is understood to love it so much that he imports vast quantities despite Western sanctions.

A unhealthy appetite for Emmental, also known as Swiss cheese, is believed to be a key factor in Kim's weight ballooning so in recent months that he now walks with a limp.

Experts believe Kim may be deliberately gaining weight in order to look more like his grandfather Kim Il-sung, who is venerated in North Korea as the nation's founder and even now - exactly 20 years after his death - is still considered the head of state with the title Eternal President of the Republic.

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Weight gain: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un got a taste for the cheese while a student in Switzerland - and is understood to love it so much that he imports vast quantities despite Western sanctions

Kim Jong-un's unhealthy obsession with Emmental has led to him importing vast quantities of the cheese for his own consumption - despite millions of North Koreans struggling to find enough to eat.

Malnutrition is widespread and famines often break out in the country, which is still reliant on foreign food aid as a result of economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support in the 1990s.

But despite the suffering of his 25 million citizens, Kim continues to gorge on Swiss cheese in such vast quantities that he is waistline is expanding at a dangerously rapid rate, according to the Mirror.

North Koreans who have managed to flee the country believe the weight gain may be deliberate in order to look more like his corpulent late grandfather Kim Il-sung.

He established an all-pervasive cult of personality around himself after turning North Korea into a oppressive single-party socialist state in the early 1980s.

Defector Cho Myung-Chul, of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, said: 'North Koreans think being fat is good, unlike South Koreans who want to be skinny.

'There is a high chance Jong-un intentionally gained weight to look like Il-sung.'

Inspiration: Experts believe Kim Jong-un may be using his love of Emmental (left) to deliberately gain weight in order to look more like his corpulent grandfather late Kim Il-sung (right)

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Earlier this year it was revealed that Kim tried to send a team of food experts to the French city of Besancon for a crash course in dairy production.

Tired of his country's bland attempts to produce a top quality local cheese the despot ordered the three specialists to spend several months at the National Dairy Industry College.

Although the college 'politely but firmly' rejected the request, Kim remains determined to improve standards at the country's main cheese factory.

He is understood to be furious that the Pyongyang Dairy has continually failed to produce an Emmental-style cheese of a high enough quality to satisfy his demands.

The news comes as North Korea branded the U.S. 'a graveyard of human rights', criticising the nation in the wake of the Missouri riots following the shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

China, Iran and Russia have previously criticised America following the shooting and the crackdown on protesters following the shooting in the town of Ferguson, a suburb of St Louis.