For countries with rich culinary traditions that date back to the Aztecs and Incas, Mexico and Peru have developed quite a taste for modern food fashions.

Mexicans quaff more fizzy drinks than any other country; Peru has the highest density of fast-food joints in the world.

Chile, one of the world’s biggest exporters of fruit, doesn’t eat much of it: processed foods account for more than half an average Chilean’s shopping basket.

Even in slender Brazil, the eating of sweets and junk food has risen fivefold in 30 years.

Obesity in Latin America: Battle of the bulge | The Economist

A 450-pound inmate who was deemed too fat to be put to death has died of natural causes.

Ronald Post died Thursday morning at an Ohio prison hospital where he’d been treated on and off since 2011, a state prisons spokeswoman said. He was a week shy of his 54th birthday.

His obesity became an issue when Post argued in federal court that executing him would amount to cruel and unusual punishment because it would take a long time for a prison official to find a muscle for the lethal injection to be administered.

His death comes seven months after he was granted clemency by the governor, when his case drew national attention because of his  weight.

Spokeswoman Ricky Seyfang said the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction classified the death as ‘expected.’

She said privacy laws prevented her from divulging whether Post’s weight was a factor in his death.

Post was sentenced to death for killing Elyria motel clerk Helen Vantz on Decemeber 15, 1983.

Ronald Post: Obese inmate ‘too fat for execution’ dies in prison hospital aged 53 | Mail Online

Albert Buitenhuis, who weighs 286 pounds, was told that it may place demands on the New Zealand health services.

He and wife Marthie are now facing deportation from their Christchurch home and are living with his sister in Auckland as they fight the decision.

New Zealand is the third most obese nation in the developed world, coming behind the US and Mexico.

Albert is five feet ten inches tall and has a body mass index of 40, making him clinically obese.

Albert Buitenhuis: New Zealand kicks obese man out of the country because at 290lbs he is too heavy | Mail Online