In the United States, one in three Americans are obese, in Brazil that number is one in seven.
However, Otaliba Libanio Neto, director of Brazil’s Department of Health Analysis, says if the weight gain continues in Brazil, Brazilians and Americans will have similar obesity rates in the next decade.
Adds Jose Temporao, the minister of health: “The problem of Brazil is no longer malnutrition but childhood obesity and the increase in weight.”
The economic good times have led to the weight gain; in 2010, the statistics institute showed that 48 percent of adult women and 50 percent of men were overweight. Analysts attribute Brazil’s weight problem with the dramatic change in diet from rice, beans and vegetables, to processed meats, salty snacks and soda.
Brazil has been tapped to host the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, although recent studies have shown less than 10 percent of adults exercise regularly.
Brazil, much like America, celebrates its plus-size beauty, however, and will host the first ever Miss Plus Size beauty competition.
You go, girls!
