Ok, so the country in first place won’t have come as a huge surprise to the bods at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operations and Development), or probably to any of you for that matter, but you may be surprised to see that their lead isn’t as great as you may have thought.

According to the report, obesity rates have been increasing dramatically pretty much everywhere with the rate of overweight people expected to increase by a further 1% per year for the next 10 years in some countries.

As well as affecting individuals, (severely obese people die 8-10 years sooner than they could otherwise expect to) obesity is an enormous burden on health systems, an obese person can cost their health care system as much as 25% more money than a person of normal weight.

The health ministers of OECD countries will be meeting on the 7-8 of October 2010 to discuss obesity and some strategies for tackling it. Let’s hope they have some good ideas.