Answer: Obesity.

I just heard this and did the Google and yes, on a global scale, obesity is a bigger problem than hunger. According to a recent study, there are 900 million obese people worldwide and 842 million who go hungry daily.

IMO, the 842M hungry are really a more significant problem but this does raise some interesting discussion questions.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/13/health/glo...en-report/

Much of the problem is that sand does not grow schit very well.

With the dollar amount mentioned below they seemed to have justified getting billions in grants, didn't they?

Quote:Leaders kicked off a two-day meeting at the U.N. that year by approving a "political declaration" meant to stem the rising tide of NCDs. It was only the second time a health issue had been debated at a special meeting of the General Assembly, after the group's pledge a decade ago to tackle AIDS.

Shifting the focus from treating noncommunicable diseases to preventing them could prove beneficial to the economy as well.

NCDs will cost more than $30 trillion over the next 20 years, according to a 2011 report by the World Economic Forum and Harvard School of Public Health. They estimate an additional $16 trillion will be spent on mental health conditions -- costs that could push millions of people into poverty, economists say.

"We hope policymakers will pay attention to these numbers and figure out what programs they can implement to intervene on these trends," Mokdad said.