Increased calorie consumption corresponds to weight gain levels across the globe

Researchers have urged policy makers to improve the healthiness of food after a study showed that obesity rates are rising in many countries in line with increases in the amount of energy in food.1

The study, in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, analysed increases in the food energy supply and obesity in 69 high, low, and middle income countries and found that body weight and the number of calories consumed had both increased in 56 countries (81%) from 1971 to 2010. In 45 of these countries the increase in energy consumed was enough to explain the increase in average body weight.

Researchers used a model to predict body weight gain, based on a rule that an increase in energy intake of …