"Increases in average BMI are largely driven by populations that are already overweight or obese, with little to no change among underweight individuals," he said.
The study shows a persistent problem of underweight in India, with about 25 percent of the population being underweight in 2005, and at the same time the percentage of women who are obese has doubled.
"To put this in perspective, the number of underweight women exceeds the number of overweight and obese combined in India. This pattern of persisting problems of under-nutrition along with a simultaneous rise in obesity is being seen in most of the low income countries studied," Fahad Razak, the study's lead author and a fellow at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital, told IANS.
Razak says underweight people die at much higher rates, perhaps because of diseases related to being malnourished, while overweight and obese people also have higher rates of death and disease, mostly from causes such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
