The two are on a collision course, putting patients at a far higher risk Image Credit: Shutterstock
The UAE ranks 26th on the Global Obesity Observatory’s list of nations with high percentage of obese people behind the US positioned at 14 but ahead of the UK ranked 29. As of 2016, the country had 28.44 per cent obese men and 42.46 obese women. A more recent 2019 study of 33,000 Emirati men in the UAE, conducted by Prof. Ashraf Hassan Humaidan Al Zaabi from Zayed Military Hospital in Abu Dhabi, found even more startling statistics 58 per cent of the surveyed were overweight or obese at age 18, rising sharply to 71 per cent at the age of 29. Sixty-two per cent of men exhibited at least one cardio-metabolic risk factor, while one in four had more than one cardio-metabolic risk factor.