(Photo: Mark Lennihan, AP) 
 
 By sheer numbers, the USA handily leads the world in obesity, with 87 million of the world's 671 million obese people — 13% of the total for a country with 5% of the population, a new report says. Rates are rising among men, women and children, in rich countries and in poor countries, the report says. Nations in the Middle East and North Africa, Central America and the Pacific and Caribbean islands reached staggeringly high obesity rates, the team at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle reported in the Lancet medical journal. Among the details: 
 
 •The number of overweight or obese individuals worldwide increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013. So are 13% of boys and girls in developing countries. There was a possible ray of hope in rich countries, with the rate of increase in adult obesity slowing in the past eight years. This month, the World Health Organization launched a commission to study rising obesity among children worldwide and suggest solutions.
– There are more obese or overweight people in the world today than there were people of any weight in 1935, the most comprehensive look at worldwide obesity in decades warns. The 188-country study found that there are 2.1 billion overweight or obese people in the world, making up around 30% of the world's population, up from 20% in 1980, USA Today reports. Not a single country has recorded a decline in obesity over the last 30 years. "We hoped there would be some examples of success that you could latch onto," a study co-author says. "But there's a complete lack of success stories in bringing down obesity." The study published in British medical journal the Lancet found that the Middle East and north Africa had seen the biggest weight gains, though the US still has the largest number of obese people, with 87 million of the world's 671 million obese people, reports Reuters. Other countries, however, have even higher obesity rates, including Tonga, where more than 50% of all adults are obese. "Two-thirds of the obese population actually resides in developing countries," says one of the researchers; they warn that obesity rates are rising among rich and poor countries, men and women, and adults and children alike.