Worldwide, there has been a significant increase in rates of obesity and overweight in both adults (28% increase) and children (up by 47%) in the past 33 years, with the number of overweight and obese people rising from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013, according to an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013, published in The Lancet. Read more.