More than half a billion men and women - nearly one in nine of all adults around the world - are clinically obese, a report backed by the World Health organisation (WHO), says.
The figures, released on Friday, are nearly double those of 1980, leading doctors to warn that a "tsunami of obesity" is unfurling across the world. In 2008, the latest year for which statistics were available, nearly one woman in seven and one man in 10 were obese, the study by Imperial College of London and Harvard University found.
According to the WHO, obesity causes three million premature deaths each year from heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other disorders. The researchers described the tableau as "a population emergency".
"[It] will cost tens of millions of preventable deaths unless rapid and widespread actions are taken by governments and health-care systems worldwide," said the report, published in health journal The Lancet.
The problem has been most prevalent in rich nations, rising most in the US, followed by New Zealand and Australia for women, and Britain and Australia for men. But many developing countries, especially in the Middle East and in rapidly urbanising areas, are catching up.
The average weight levels in several populations in the Middle East fall just shy of the benchmark for obesity.
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