Thirty years ago the word obesity was not familiar to the people of the Arabian countries> underweight, anemia and infectious diseases were the predominant diseases at the time. However, the Arab Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Countries have experienced marked changes in lifestyle, socioeconomic status and diatery habits during the past three decades, these changes have their impact on trends of diseases in the populations with development of non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, heart diseases, hypertention, diabeties and cancer.
Obesity in the Gulf
