Obesity: The World is 17 Million Tons Overweight

Obesity measured on the world's scale sure sounds worse when the population's weight is estimated in the millions of tons.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine published a report this week that estimates the world's population is overweight by 17 billion tons (34 billion pounds), MSNBC reports.

The U.S. makes up just 5 percent of the world's population but represents about a third of the world's weight because of America's obesity epidemic, according to MSNBC.

The average rate of overweight and obese children is 41.6 percent in Los Angeles County. However, the range between cities varies dramatically. In Arcadia, one in four (25.1 percent) of children are overweight or obese, found.

Compare this to 53 percent in Huntington Park and 11.3 percent in Manhattan Beach.