260 Diet and Health
Asia
There is still much less obesity in the largest two countries in Asia, China and
India, but levels are higher in other countries. For instance, total grade I and above
levels are between 25 and 30 per cent for Malaysia, and 13 and 19 per cent for the
Philippines. The exceptions are the Central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan
that were members of the Soviet Union prior to 1992. Grade I overweight status is
currently the major problem in Asia except for Malaysia. There is no clear gender
pattern to levels of obesity in Asia.
Trends
There are a small number of lower- and middle-income countries for which we
have excellent data on trends in body composition. Nationally representative or
large nationwide data sets are available for Brazil in Latin America; China and
India in Asia; Mauritius in Africa; Nauru and Western Samoa in the South Pacific;
and Russia. These provide some sense of trends in adult obesity. Figure 12.7 shows
the trends for the few countries for which there are nationally representative data.
We created ten-year changes in the percentage points of obesity for each. Much
greater detail of these obesity patterns and trends are presented elsewhere.^43
Brazil
Monteiro and his colleagues^36 have shown that during a 15-year period, the pro-
portion of grade II and above overweight adult males almost doubled (5.7–9.6 per
cent). For females of reproductive age the proportion of grade II obesity increased
Figure 12.7 Obesity trends: the percentage point increase in obesity prevalence per
ten-year period