A new study provides evidence of a sharp increase in the number of obese and overweight children and young adults worldwide in just 40 years. The study was a project of researchers at Imperial College London and the World Health Organization (WHO). The findings were released this week at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Obesity is a condition in which the body stores large, unhealthy amounts of fat. Obese individuals are considered overweight. The researchers studied obesity rates among children and young people, between five and 19 years of age. They found that rates in this group increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016. This was one of the biggest epidemiological studies ever done.