The Telegraph reports the figures soared as Australians aged, with 70 percent of men and 60 percent of women aged 45-65 having a body mass index of 25 or more, making them overweight or obese.
It means that a nation commonly associated with outdoor, sporty and active lifestyles was facing a “fat time bomb.”
The report, “Australia’s Future Fat Bomb,” compiled the results of height and weight checks carried out on 14,000 adult Australians in 2005.
Professor Simon Stewart, the institute’s head of preventative cardiology, said that the study estimated one million more overweight Australians than had previously been assumed.
“As we send our athletes off to the Olympics let’s reflect on the fact that we would win the gold medal problem now in the world fat Olympics, if there was such a thing,” he said.
While Australia faces the same problems as many western countries with ever-widening waistlines, it is not the fattest nation in the world.
The World Health Organization lists Nauru as such, with 94.5 percent of the Pacific state’s adult population overweight.
The Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga complete the world’s top five, all with at least 90 percent of the population needing to lose weight.
The Australian study, however, predicted there would be an extra 700,000 heart-related hospital admissions in the next 20 years due to obesity and almost 125,000 Australians would die because of the condition in that period.
