Nearly three-quarters of South Africans are overweight and the country ranks third in a list of the world’s most obese nations behind the United States and Mexico, according to surveys by GlaxoSmithKline, the British multinational healthcare procuts company, and Brish medical journal The Lancet.
Africa has for decades been grappling with well-publicised epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and malaria, but a wave of new health risks has gone relatively unnoticed.