World's Population Is 17 Million Tons Overweight

Obesity is threatening the world’s future food security, according to a study published Monday that calculated the weight of the global population at 316 million tons.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said increasing levels of fatness around the world could have the same impact on global resources as an extra half a billion people.

In a report published in the journal BMC Public Health [PDF file here], the researchers estimated that 17 million tons of the global body mass was due to people being overweight.

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