According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global obesity rates have nearly tripled since 1975. In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight. Of these, over 650 million were obese. To put this in perspective, roughly 39% of the world’s adult population carries excess weight. If post-2000 trends continue, it is projected that by 2030, approximately 57% of the world’s adult population will be overweight or obese. This is not merely a cosmetic issue; it is a epidemiological time bomb.
Nutritionists describe this phenomenon as the ‘Nutrition Transition’. This model explains the shift from traditional, high-fibre diets to modern, high-fat, high-sugar, and high-calorie diets. Concurrently, the world has moved from manual labour to sedentary occupations. In developing nations, the adoption of a ‘Western diet’—rich in processed meats, sugary beverages, and refined grains—has occurred faster than economic growth can support public health infrastructure. Mexico, for instance, now has a higher obesity rate than the United States, largely due to the mass consumption of soft drinks and processed snacks. the worlds expanding waistline ielts reading answers
The keyword focus is: IELTS Reading Practice Test Time Allowed: 20 Minutes Source: Adapted from WHO, The Lancet, and Global Nutrition Reports READING PASSAGE The World’s Expanding Waistline: A Global Health Crisis For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people rivals the number of underweight people. While famine and food scarcity dominated the 20th century, the 21st century is defined by a silent, slow-moving pandemic: obesity. The world’s waistline is expanding at an alarming rate, transforming from a problem of wealthy nations to a universal threat affecting low and middle-income countries the most. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global