Piling on the Pounds

Maybe we were fat all along, maybe stress eating has gotten the better of us during this past year and a half or maybe it’s just the amount of time we’ve been spending munching in front of endless talk shows, but it’s official: Egyptians are overweight. In a London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study, researchers rank 177 countries not in terms of their economy, democracy or development, but how fat their people are. Egypt ranked number 14, weighing in at an average 74 kg compared to the worldwide average of 62 kg. The study, published on June 18 at the United Nations conference RIO+20, focuses on the issue of obesity in relation to its environmental impact. Coming in third, Americans’ average weight is about 82 kg, 20 kg more than the world’s average weight while Kuwaitis came in fifth at 77.8 kg. The fattest nation in the world is Micronesia, at 87.4 kilograms, followed by Tonga. With Ramadan around the corner and more political suspense on TV, we might just be giving the top three a run for their money.