When compared to the UK, USA and China, the levels of obesity in Australian women is rising faster than in other countries, Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported.
Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that the top five percent of obese women in Australia at age 30 have an average BMI of 37.7. In America the top five percent of women at the same age have an average BMI of 42.5. Australian women are fast catching up to American obesity levels for the first time ever.
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The World Health Organization states that those with a body mass index (BMI) figure of more than 34.9 are critically obese. BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared.
Experts believe that women gain weight gradually and do not notice their weight creeping up. Women have a tendency to gain extra weight once they turn 30 due to lifestyle changes, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Though health professionals have known that women have been putting on more weight than men over the past decade, the study has still alarmed them.
Experts are warning women not to become complacent with their increasing weight.
"What we have known is that for the past five years, people have been gaining weight and they are women aged between 25 and 35," the University of Sydney's Boden Professor of Human Nutrition, Professor Ian Caterson, told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
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