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Rising obesity levels in OECD countries are hitting strapped public health budgets and on this Thanksgiving Day, the inconvenient truth is that America has the worst problem among the world's developed countries with adult obesity rates doubling to 34% of the adult population since 1980, while another 34% of US adults over 20 are overweight. The OECD says obesity is a key risk factor for many chronic conditions, with severely obese people dying up to 10 years earlier than those of normal weight. A report shows that obesity rates have doubled or even tripled in many countries since 1980. In more than half of OECD countries, 50% or more of the population is now overweight, if not obese. The obesity rate in the adult population is highest in the United States, rising from 15% in 1980 to 34% in 2008, and lowest in Japan and Korea, at 4%. In his 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier, on the grim conditions of the English working classes, George Orwell wrote:
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