Being overweight is a major issue in the UAE.

That was brought home again today by a story in The National noting that 45.1 percent of the women in the UAE are clinically obese, according to 2015 World Health Organization figures.

Men here aren’t doing very well, either. The WHO numbers suggest 33.8 percent of men are obese. Back to that in a minute.

The women’s number is eye-catching. The UAE’s rate of obesity among women is No. 7 in the world.

The six countries ahead of the UAE are either in the southern Pacific, where diets are particularly awful (pork and starches, pretty much), or right here in the Gulf, with Qatar having the world’s No. 1 rate for obese women, at 49.7 percent, and Kuwait ranking sixth, at 45.9 percent, just ahead of the UAE.

Why are such high percentage of women in the UAE obese?

One major factor is the rate of obesity among Emirati women.

An assistant professor of nutrition at Zayed University told The National that Emirati women eat too much and rarely exercise.

“They end up having extremely sedentary lives, especially housewives, where their only activity is eating at home or at the malls.”

And Emiratis are more likely to move the needle on the women’s obesity scale because they represent a far higher percentage of the UAE female population than do Emirati men.

Emirati citizens make up only about 1 million of the country’s 10 million or so residents, and more than 70 percent of the 9 million expatriates are male.

A significant fraction of the male expatriates here are young men often employed in construction or other strenuous, out-of-doors work, leaving them unlikely to be overweight.

Actually, if we crunched the numbers, the rate of Emirati male obesity may be higher than it is for women, but because the men’s numbers are swamped by the millions of male expatriates living here (typically unmarried, or away from their families), the Emirati male impact on the overall statistics is muted.

I think it is safe to say the problems come down to the same two issues we see in the West, where obesity rates continue to climb.

1. Too much eating.

2. Not enough exercise.

People here eat because they can. Literally no one is dying of hunger, and practically no one is starving. The country also has an unhealthy attachment to fast food; every scary global outlet with fatty and salty menus is represented here, and many are extremely popular.

Food usually comes in enormous quantities and much of it is thrown away, but much is eaten, too. As the academic suggested, above, eating is a primary social activity here.

Exercise, however, is not.

This is a country with an ethos that links exercise to being poor. If you are well off, you are not out in the sun, sweating.

Also, the extreme heat here in the long, long summer makes it very difficult (and often dangerous) to exercise out of doors for half the year.

Obesity is associated with heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and diabetes. (The UAE has one of the highest rate of diabetes in the world.)

The National quoted Lalu Chacko, medical director of an Abu Dhabi hospital, as saying: “These are extremely worrying statistics. When you look around you, it is obvious that there are many obese people here. It has become a way of life.”