SYDNEY Australia -- An obesity pand...

SYDNEY Australia -- An obesity pandemic threatens to overwhelm health schemes around the globe with illnesses similar as diabetes and heart disease, master-hands at an international conference warned Sunday.

"This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world," Paul Zimmet, chairman of the meeting of more than 2500 quicks and health officials, said in a language opening the weeklong International Congres in succession Obesity. "It's as big a threat as global warming and bird flu"

The World Health Organization says more than 1 billion adults are overweight and 300 million of them are obese, putting them at a great deal higher risk of diabetes, heart puzzles high blood pressure, stroke and a certain forms of cancer.

Zimmet, a diabetes experienced person at Australia's Monash University, said there are now more overweight populace in the world than the undernourished, who number about 600 million.

nation in wealthy countries lead in overeating and not doing enough physical activity, if it were not that those in the poorer nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America are quickly learning bad habits, masters said.

stupendous ECONOMIC DILEMMA

Thailand's Public Health Ministry, for instance, announced Sunday that nearly individual in three Thais over age 35 is at risk of obesity- related diseases.

"We are not dealing with a scientific or medical vexed question We're dealing with an enormous economic moot point that, it is already accepted, is going to overwhelm each medical system in the world," said Dr Philip James, the British chairman of the International Obesity Task Force.

The task force is a section of the International Association for the application of mind of Obesity, a professional organization of scientists and health workers in near 50 countries that deal with the issue.

James said the costliness of treating obesity-related health question at issues was immeasurable on a global scale, if it be not that the group estimated it at billions of dollars a year in countries similar as Australia, Britain and the United States.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided according to ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved