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Although hunger is still pervasive in poor rural areas, major cities in the country are seeing an increasing number of overweight and obese people, a nutritionist said on Tuesday.

Titi Sekar Indah, a clinical nutritionist from Central Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta, said the number of overweight people rose significantly from just 5 percent of the population in 1997 to 19.1 percent in the space of a decade.

“And this figure is likely to keep increasing, especially among young people nowadays,” Titi said, adding that most cases of obesity were found in big cities such as Jakarta.

Titi also said that weight problems were mostly affecting people in their productive years, but added that she had been increasingly treating children with these problems.

“I do not have the data with me, but in recent years, I have been seeing more and more children who are suffering from weight problems taken to my practice by their parents,” Titi said.

However, she added, the majority of her patients still belonged to the productive years of between 15 and 64.

Obesity is measured by calculating the body mass index, which is based on a person’s height and weight and correlates to the amount of body fat. It is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared.

She said people with a body mass index of 25.1 to 30 would be categorized as overweight while those whose with an index of more than 30 were obese. The normal range is from 18.5 to 25.

The Association for the Study of Obesity found in 2004 that obesity grew at a higher rate among women than among men. It showed that the prevalence of obesity among women was at 11.2 percent while among men it stood at 9.16 percent.

“We need to see being obese as not just an unfortunate condition but a disease,” Titi said.

She said overweight and obese people were at greater risk of acquiring major illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, gallstones, high blood pressure and certain cancers.

“People who are overweight have twice the risk of death than those with normal body weight,” she said, adding that the obese had three times the risk of death.

An unbalanced diet was a major factor in obesity, Titi said, adding that in most cases the effect of a high-calorie diet was further compounded by a lack of exercise.

“It’s important people motivate themselves to be healthy,” she said.

But motivation did not come easy for most people.

Grafisabrina, a 21-year-old female college student known to her friends as Grey, said that motivating herself to implement a healthy diet and lifestyle was the hardest part.

“I can’t control myself because I love fast food,” Grey said. “I think I’ll have to set some targets.”

Grey has a body mass index of 32, which makes her obese.

“I eat too many sweet and fatty snacks,” she said. “And I never do any physical exercise.”