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The number of overweight and obese adults in the developing world has almost quadrupled to around one billion since 1980, says a report from a UK think tank.
The Overseas Development Institute said one in three people worldwide was now overweight and urged governments to do more to influence diets.
In the UK, 64% of adults are classed as being overweight or obese.
The report predicts a “huge increase” in heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
Globally, the percentage of adults who were overweight or obese – classed as having a body mass index greater than 25 – grew from 23% to 34% between 1980 and 2008.
The majority of this increase was seen in the developing world, particularly in countries where incomes were rising, such as Egypt and Mexico.
The ODI’s Future Diets report says this is due to changing diets and a shift from eating cereals and grains to the consumption of more fats, sugar, oils and animal products.
A total of 904 million people in developing countries are now classed as overweight or above, with a BMI of more than 25, up from 250 million in 1980.
This compares to 557 million in high-income countries. Over the same period, the global population nearly doubled.
At the same time, however, under-nourishment is still recognised to be a problem for hundreds of millions of people in the developing world, particularly children.
Using data published in Population Health Metrics last year, the researchers looked at changing overweight and obesity rates across the regions of the world and by individual country.
The regions of North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America saw large increases in overweight and obesity rates to a level on a par with Europe, around 58%.
While North America still has the highest percentage of overweight adults at 70%, regions such as Australasia and southern Latin America are now not far behind with 63%.
The greatest growth in overweight people occurred in south east Asia, where the percentage tripled from a lower starting point of 7% to 22%.
Among individual countries, the report found that overweight and obesity rates had almost doubled in China and Mexico, and risen by a third in South Africa since 1980. Many countries in the Middle East also had a high percentage of overweight adults.
One of the report authors, Steve Wiggins, said there were likely to be multiple reasons for the increases.
“People with higher incomes have the ability to choose the kind of foods they want. Changes in lifestyle, the increasing availability of processed foods, advertising, media influences… have all led to dietary changes.”
He said this was particularly the case in emerging economies, where a large middle class of people with rising incomes was living in urban centres and not taking much physical exercise.
The result, he says, is “an explosion in overweight and obesity in the past 30 years” which could lead to serious health implications.
This is because consumption of fat, salt and sugar, which has increased globally according to the United Nations, is a significant factor in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers.
The world’s top sugar consumers include the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
To combat the rising tide of obesity, Mr Wiggins recommends more concerted public health measures from governments, similar to those taken to limit smoking in developed countries.
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