As the latest statistics estimate that worldwide one billion adults are overweight, and a third of those are obese, an expert has stated that the issue must be regarded with the same urgency as climate change.
Professor Philip James a leading health and obesity expert, says major changes are needed in food production, advertising and town planning if the tide is to be turned.
Professor James who has developed policies for the British Government, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, has called on world leaders to agree to a global pact on fighting obesity.
Professor James, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, says ten percent of the world's children are either overweight or obese, twice as many as the malnourished.
He believes healthy food should be made cheaper, the advertising of junk food to children clearly regulated and towns should be built around walking and public transport rather than roads and cars.
According to Professor James the world can no longer afford to wait and waiting for the perfect solution, will be too late.
A quarter of British women and a fifth of British men are classed as obese, at a cost to the NHS of £1billion a year and that bill is expected to rise to £6.5billion by 2050.
Australia too has a growing crisis in obesity which is also a major health issue and has become one of the fattest nations with the rate of overweight and obesity amongst adults and children doubling over the past 20 years.
A National Health Survey in 2004 found that almost two thirds of men (62 per cent) and just under half of women (45 per cent) were either overweight or obese, and it is an increasing problem with Australian children as up to a quarter (20-25 per cent) aged 7-15 years, are overweight or obese.
Obesity is complex problem but is not confined to adults, and the solution is rather more straightforward - we need to lead healthier lives and many of the health problems caused by obesity can be prevented by living a healthy and active life.
Obesity can shorten a person's life by as much as nine years and raise the risk of a plethora of health problems including several cancers, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, infertility and depression.