Mirror, mirror on the wall, who`s the fattest of them all?

Did you know that eight of the top 10 countries with the greatest percentage of overweight people in the world are in the Pacific region? That`s according to estimates by the World Health Organization.

Nauru tops the list of 194 countries, with an alarming 94.5 percent of its adult population classified as such.

The top five countries with the fattest people are as follows:

1. Nauru
2. The Federated States of Micronesia (Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei)
3. Cook Islands
4. Niue
5. Tonga

The WHO said 90 percent of each of these countries` population is overweight.

The CNMI and Guam were not ranked separate from the United States, which is top nine on the list. The U.S., according to the WHO, has 74.1 percent of those over 15 years old considered overweight.

The local population of the CNMI and Guam may have also ranked high on the list if they were considered separate from the U.S., given the studies done, for example, by the CNMI Department of Public Health on the number of children and adults who are obese or overweight.

Completing the top 10 list are:

6. Samoa
7. Palau
8. Kuwait
9. United States
10. Kiribati

Experts, according to Forbes Magazine, say it is not surprising that people across the globe are increasingly becoming overweight because of urbanization and the influx of Western ways of life including myriad fast food choices, little exercise and stressful jobs. (The third one doesn`t really count in the Pacific?)

“This change in lifestyle is most evident in the South Pacific. On the list of `fattest` countries, eight of the top 10 are in the Pacific region,” said Forbes Magazine. “In the last 50 years, this area has established significant economic ties with the U.S. and New Zealand, which caused a surge in Western imports and a significant change in diet.”

It pays to know something. And regardless of whether or not the CNMI and Guam are on the list, these two territories need to do more to prevent and treat obesity. While the governments have been doing education awareness campaign, they`re not enough. Local government funding for health programs, for example, is limited. Community and government officials` participation in health and fitness programs are also limited.


Others on the list:

11. Dominica
12. Barbados
13. Argentina
14. Egypt
15. Malta
16. Greece
17. New Zealand
18. United Arab Emirates
19. Mexico
20. Trinidad and Tobago