Published January 25, 2016
Iceland ranks very high globally in terms of obesity overall, and has also out-ranked the United States in the area.
Ramon Martinez, a technical specialist in health metrics for the World Health Organization, compiled data from 188 countries around the world, tracking obesity rates in adults over the age of 20 from 1990 to 2013. In this case, “obesity” was defined as having a body mass index over 25.
According to the findings, Iceland ranks 21st in the world in terms of adult obesity. 67.1% of Icelandic adults are obese, the data finds, increasing by 12.2% since 1990.
By comparison, the United States ranks 27th in the world, with 66.3% of the population struggling with obesity.
Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati, all islands in the South Pacific, topped the global index for obesity, all of them hovering around the 80% mark. Ethiopia and North Korea had the least obese populations, by contrast, at 6.1% and 4.4% of the population respectively.
