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The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) says it is work­ing on a project with Bar­ba­dos and Trinidad and To­ba­go to strength­en ac­tions against obe­si­ty in the re­gion, which has the high­est preva­lence of over­weight and obe­si­ty in the world.

PA­HO, which on Tues­day ob­served World Obe­si­ty Day, said that the ini­tia­tive al­so in­cludes sev­en oth­er coun­tries in Latin Amer­i­ca, name­ly Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Chile, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, Pe­ru and Uruguay, adding that the lessons learned dur­ing this ac­cel­er­a­tion phase are ex­pect­ed to serve as a mod­el for the fu­ture ex­pan­sion of the plan across the re­gion.

PA­HO said in the Amer­i­c­as, 67.5 per cent of adults and 37.6 per cent of chil­dren and ado­les­cents aged five to 19 are over­weight or obese, in­creas­ing the risk of non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and high­light­ing the ur­gency of im­me­di­ate ac­tion.