LETTER | Obesity in Malaysia is a ticking time bomb Modified5 Mar 2021, 6:29 am A - LETTER | The World Obesity Day that fell on March 4 is dedicated to addressing the global obesity epidemic. Among its missions are to increase awareness that obesity is a disease. Malaysia has the highest prevalence of obesity among adults in Southeast Asia. In the 2019 National Health and Morbidity Survey, 50.1 percent of our adult population were reported to be overweight (30.4 percent) or obese (19.7 percent). Obesity is a risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and several types of cancers such as breast, large intestine, pancreas and kidney cancers. Compared with normal-weight individuals, obesity increases the risks of type 2 diabetes by sevenfold in men and 12-fold in women.