New Delhi, Sept. 11 -- The overweight and obesity rising across all ages - from youngest children to adults and prevalence among under-five children has more than doubled in just over a decade.

According to UNICEF's Child Nutrition Global Report 2025, launched recently, obesity has, for the first time, surpassed underweight globally as the most common form of malnutrition among school-aged children and adolescents. Today, one in ten children worldwide, nearly 188 million, live with obesity. Once considered a condition of affluence, obesity is now spreading rapidly in low and middle-income countries, including in India.

"Countries in South Asia had the lowest prevalence of overweight in 2000. By 2022, the prevalence increased almost five...