A new chart shows the average body mass index (BMI) values for adults around the globe revealing the countries which contain the heaviest and lightest citizens.
With its wealthy society and love of fast food outlets, many would place the United States at the top of the list.
However, the US is piped to first place in the BMI chart by Kuwait.
The Arab state has an average BMI of 27.5 for men and 31.4 for women.
Kuwait beats the US in second place which averages 26.5 for men and 29 for women.
Adults who have an average body weight of between 18.5 and 24.9 are generally considered to have the ideal body weight for their height.
Other countries which appear to be heavy include UK, Germany, Greece and Argentina.
Despite its reputation as a sport-crazy outdoor country, Australia features 11th on the list, which was compiled by Visual.ly.
It is unsurprising that some of the world’s poorest countries in Asia and Africa feature as the countries with the lowest BMI.
People from Bangladesh have the lowest BMI – with men at 20.5 and women at 19.8.
Other countries close to the bottom include some which have been riven by war and famine – including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Eritrea.
Some countries also have wide discrepancies between men and women.
In Jamaica, the average BMI for a man is 24.8 while for women it is 29.8. Similar trends are also noticeable in Lesotho, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti.
A North Korean man has been executed after murdering his two children for food, reports from inside the secretive state claim.
A “hidden famine” in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae is believed to have killed up to 10,000 people and there are fears that incidents of cannibalism have risen.
The grim story is just one to emerge as residents battle starvation after a drought hit farms and shortages were compounded by party officials confiscating food.
Undercover reporters from Asia Press told the Sunday Times that one man dug up his grandchild’s corpse and ate it. Another, boiled his own child for food.
Despite reports of the widespread famine, Kim Jong-un, 30, has spent vast sums of money on two rocket launches in recent months.
There are fears the North Korean leader is planning a nuclear test in protest at a UN Security Council punishment for the recent rocket launches and to counter what it sees as US hostility.
One informant was quoted as saying: “In my village in May a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.”
The informant said the father killed his eldest daughter while his wife was away on business and then killed his son because he had witnessed the murder.
When his wife returned the man told her they had “meat” but she became suspicious and contacted officials who discovered part of the children’s bodies.
A North Korean man has been executed after murdering his two children for food, reports from inside the secretive state claim
Jiro Ishimaru, from Asia Press, which compiled a 12 page report, said: “Particularly shocking were the numerous testimonies that hit us about cannibalism.”
Undercover reporters said food was confiscated from the two provinces and given to the residents of the capital Pyongyang.
A drought then left food supplies desperately short.
The Sunday Times also quoted an official of the ruling Korean Worker’s party as saying: “In a village in Chongdan county, a man who went mad with hunger boiled his own child, ate his flesh and was arrested.”
United Nations officials visited the area during a state-sponsored trip but local reporters said it is unlikely they were shown the famine-hit areas.
It has not the first time that reports of cannibalism have come out of the country.
In May last year, the South Korean state-run Korean Institute for National Unification said that one man was executed after eating part of a colleague and then trying to sell the remains as mutton.
One man killed and ate a girl and a third report of cannibalism was recorded from 2011.
Another man was executed in May after murdering 11 people and selling the bodies as pork.
There were also reports of cannibalism in the country’s network of prison camps.
North Korea was hit by a terrible famine in the 1990s – known as the Arduous March – which killed between 240,000 and 3.5 million people.
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The floods that hit parts of North Korea in recent weeks have killed 169 people and left 400 missing, the state news agency says, sharply revising earlier casualty figures.
The floods and heavy rain in late June and July have also made more than 212,000 people homeless, it says.
Some 65,000 hectares (160,000 acres) of cropland were affected.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says it is sending emergency food aid to North Korea after it asked for aid.
The floods that hit parts of North Korea in recent weeks have killed 169 people and left 400 missing
Official media had previously reported 119 deaths in the floods.
On Friday, the WFP said the initial food assistance would provide flood victims with 400 g (14 oz) of maize per day for two weeks, but it did not say when the food would arrive.
UN officials in Pyongyang who visited flood-hit parts of the country to assess damage said the need for aid was urgent.
Damage to infrastructure and farmland has affected the country’s already dire food shortage problem.
More than 8,600 houses were destroyed and another 43,770 swamped, along with some 1,400 schools, factories and healthcare facilities, according to the state news agency.
Residents in these areas need of food supplies, as well as clean water, as wells have been contaminated by sewage during the floods.
North Korea relies on food aid because it cannot grow enough food to feed its people.
Famine in the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A UN report released last month estimated that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million population suffer from a chronic shortage of food.
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