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Is the United States the fattest country in the world?

According to different sources and the media, the United States is well known for being the country with the highest obesity rate, no one ever has asked my weight so I don't see how reliable this information is. Is it true then?

  • Is the weight not part of the driving license in the USA? I remember seeing this in an TV episode years ago (X-Files), but this doesn't have to be true. Also, please start titles in uppercase. – Martin Scharrer Mar 21 '12 at 17:26
  • Obesity rates (as well as almost every other piece of epidemiological information) are usually not based on weighing everyone in the country -- look at the immense effort we have to go through to take a census every ten years. Instead, estimates come from in-depth surveys of smaller numbers of people. If you put in the effort to get a representative sample, follow good research practices, and doggedly follow-up with nonrespondents, you can get statistically sound estimates from a few thousand people or even fewer. – octern Mar 21 '12 at 18:09
  • @MartinScharrer - No one ever lies on their drivers licence about their height and weight... – Chad Mar 21 '12 at 20:56
  • I lied about my weight on my driver's license! – Darwy Mar 22 '12 at 13:04
  • @martin in the US each state, territory, and our federal district independently issues drivers licenses to their residents. They all have different formats, requirements, and information on them. The three states I have lived in all didnt have weight on their drivers licenses but I know that some do. Some list height in feet plus inches and some in just inches, for example. – Sam I Am Mar 23 '12 at 15:09


According to Forbes, Global Post and Infoplease, the country (island country) of Nauru

This is the top 10 list according to forbes:

Rank    Country     %
1.  Nauru           94.5
2.  Micronesia      91.1
3.  Cook Islands    90.9
4.  Tonga           90.8
5.  Niue            81.7
6.  Samoa           80.4
7.  Palau           78.4
8.  Kuwait          74.2
9.  United States   74.1
10. Kiribati        73.6

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