The world has seen a remarkable shift from a period when diets, activity patterns and body composition were characterized by the period termed the receding famine pattern to one dominated by nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NR-NCDs). This presentation first examines the speed of these changes, summarizes dietary changes, and provides some sense of the way the burden of obesity is shifting from the rich to the poor not only in urban but also rural areas throughout the world. The focus is on the lower- and middle- income countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America but some examples will come from the United States, Australia, and the UK. After showing that changes are occurring at great speed and at earlier stages of countries'... |