1 in 3 Brit adults will be obese by 2012: Study

Washington, Dec 11 (ANI): One in three British adults will be obese by 2012, says a new study to be published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

And almost half of them will be from low income and disadvantaged communities, widening the health gap between the haves and have-nots even further, according to the study's researchers.

The researchers draw their conclusions on an analysis of annual data between 1993 and 2004 from the Health Survey for England.

The analysis included almost 128,000 adults with valid weight and height measurements, from which a body mass index (BMI) can be calculated. A BMI above 30 denotes obesity.

The authors then calculated the likely prevalence of obesity by 2012, using three different approaches.

These included straightforward year on year increases, and assuming that the trends remain constant; allowing for a speeding up or slowing down in the rate of change; and linear trends for the six most recent years only.

Between 1993 and 2004, the prevalence of obesity almost doubled in men, from 13.6 percent to 24 percent, and rose by almost 50 percent among women from 16.9 percent to 24.4 percent.

On the basis of these trends, around one in three adults (32.1 percent of men and 33.1 percent of women) will be obese by 2012, equivalent to almost 13 million people.

Of these almost half (43 percent) will be among low income groups and manual social classes, while the prevalence of obesity among non-manual and higher income social classes will have climbed to 35 percent. (ANI)