'Population fatness is a major threat': Overweight and obese threaten world food security, study warns



The overweight population is a 'major threat' to food security, scientists have warned.

The extra pounds carried by fat people could have the same implications for world food energy demands as an extra one billion people, researchers claim.

Scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said that tackling population weight is crucial for food security and ecological sustainability.

'Major threat': The expansion of waistlines globally is posing a threat to food security, researchers from the London School of Tropical Medicine have warned

The United Nations (UN) predicts that by 2050 there could be a further 2.3billion people on the planet and the dire implications of the rising population will be made worse by extra fat, researchers said.

Increasing body mass means higher energy requirements, because it takes more energy to move a heavy body. Even at rest a fatter body burns more energy.

The world’s adult population weighs 287million tonnes, 15million of which is due to being overweight and 3.5million is due to obesity, according to the study.

The data, collected from the UN and the World Health Organisation, shows that while the average global weight per person is 62kg in 2005, Britons weighed 75kg. In the US, the average adult weighed 81kg.

Across Europe, the average weight was 70.8kg compared to just 57.7kg in Asia.

More than half of people living in Europe are overweight compared to only just under a quarter of Asian people.

Almost three-quarters of people living in north America were overweight. The continent has only 6 per cent of the world's population but 34 per cent of the world's biomass mass due to obesity.

In contrast Asia has 61 per cent of the world's population but only 13 per cent of the world's biomass due to obesity.

Researchers predict that if all people had the same average body mass index (BMI) as Americans, the total human biomass would increase by 58million tonnes.

Punching above our weight: The average weight of Britons is 75kg, compared to 70.8kg in Europe and just 57.7kg in Asia

The authors of the study said that the energy requirement of humans depends not only on numbers but average mass.

'Increasing biomass will have important implications for global resource requirements, including food demand and the overall ecological footprint of our species,' they wrote.

'Although the concept of biomass is rarely applied to the human species, the ecological implications of increasing body mass are significant and ought to be taken into account when evaluating future trends and planning for future resource challenges.

'Tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability.'

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Professor Ian Roberts, who led the research, said: 'Everyone accepts that population growth threatens global environmental sustainability - our study shows that population fatness is also a major threat.

'Unless we tackle both population and fatness, our chances are slim.'