Obesity now spreading faster in rural areas than cities: Study

New Delhi : A new study has found that the obesity is spreading its wings rapidly in rural areas than cities across the world.

The study has been published in the journal Nature. It analysed the height and weight of over 112 million adults across the rural and urban areas of 200 countries ranging between 1985 to 2017.

Height and weight can be used to calculate BMI, an internationally recognised scale which tells us whether an individual has a healthy weight for their height, said researchers led by Imperial College London in the UK.

The findings show that BMI rose by an average of two kilogrammes per square metre (kg/m2) in women and 2.2 kg/m2 in men globally, equivalent to each person becoming five to six kg heavier.

Over half of the global rise over these 33 years was due to increases in BMI in rural areas.

In some low- and middle-income countries, rural areas were responsible for over 80 per cent of the increase.

The team found that since 1985, average BMI in rural areas has increased by 2.1 kg/m2 in both women and men.

However, in cities, the increase was 1.3 kg/m2 and 1.6 kg/m2 in women and men respectively.