A new report published by SharadaKeats and Steve Wiggins of the British Overseas Development Institute shows that from 1980 to 2008, the number of overweight and obese (body mass index BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) adults in developing countries worldwide nearly tripled, from 250 million to 904 million, with the number of obese people in China and Mexico nearly doubling. Researchers have called this trend a veritable “fat explosion”. During the same period, the number of overweight and obese people in developed countries increased only 1.7 times. (http://www.odi.org.uk) Yue Xin, Department of Endocrinology, First Affiliated Hospital of Henan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Obesity is the engine of chronic diseases Professor Zou Dajin, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, stressed that “obesity is the engine of various chronic diseases.” He believes that patients with chronic diseases should “lose weight early and treat it early” in order to “benefit early”, and the recently deceased former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is a negative example. According to Professor Zou, Sharon’s weight increased to 135 kg in middle age, crushing his knee joints and causing sleep apnea, hypertension, diabetes and abnormal lipid metabolism. “If Sharon had undergone gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy earlier and lost weight in time, it might have been possible to remove these stroke risk factors and avoid the painful 8-year post-stroke (episode) vegetative state,” according to Prof. Zou. Frank B. Hu, Harvard Medical School, School of Public Health, USA, also published an article in the Chinese Journal of Internal Medicine, Vol. 53, No. 1, January 2014, emphasizing that “the metabolic abnormalities caused by obesity involve almost all metabolic systems throughout the body” and therefore “the World Health Organization defines obesity as A disease”. The report shows that 1.46 billion adults worldwide are overweight or obese, that is, at least one in three adults is overweight or obese. In the past 30 years, the number of obese people in China has nearly doubled, and the growth rate of obesity among young adults is quite alarming, especially in the age group of 20-39. If BMI of 25 kg/m2 and 30 kg/m2 is used as the boundary between overweight and obesity, in 1982, the overweight and obesity rates among adults in China were 6.0% and 0.6% respectively; in 2002, the overweight and obesity rates reached 18.9% and 2.9% respectively. According to China’s overweight (BMI ≥ 24 kg/m2) and obesity standards (BMI ≥ 28 kg/m2), the overweight and obesity rates among Chinese urban residents were 28.1% and 9.8%, respectively, in 2002, and increased to 32.4% and 13.2%, respectively, from 2010 to 2011. There is no doubt that the “obesity explosion” has resulted in a significant increase in the number of people suffering from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer worldwide. The 2010 China Non-Communicable Disease Surveillance Diabetes Survey, a survey of nearly 100,000 people, showed that the estimated prevalence of diabetes among adults aged 18 and older in China was 11.6%, with a total of about 114 million people affected. The report concluded that the increasing global burden of overweight and obesity is largely related to demographic and dietary changes, especially in developing countries, from a diet “based on grains and tubers” to one “high in fat, sugar, salt and animal sources. “Frank also says, “China is in a phase of transition to a Western diet and urban lifestyle.” Popular eating habits have shifted from a traditional diet to a high energy diet with excess nutrients, and consumption of fast foods, animal-sourced foods and sugary soft drinks has increased dramatically. In addition to diet, lack of exercise is also an important cause. frank emphasizes that clinical management of overweight or obese people should be based on dietary control and physical exercise. He recommends minimizing the intake of refined carbohydrates and encouraging the consumption of whole grains, nuts and seeds, fruits and vegetables; protein should come mainly from legumes, nuts, fish or poultry, and the intake of red meat, especially highly processed red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, should be minimized.