Mexico Fattest Country Making US Not #1![VIDEO REPORt] Processed Food And Drinks Making Our Southern Neighbors Obese[PHOTOS]

Mexico is now the fattest country in the world knocking out the United States #1 title. The US is no longer the fattest country in the world as Mexico is now the most obese on earth.

Almost one-third of adult Mexicans, 32.8 percent, are obese compared to 31.8 percent of Americans. And a third of the Mexicans that are overweight are way overweight.

Experts say the root of the problem in Mexico is changing dietary patterns.

"One factor is that Mexicans consume more soft drinks per person than any other country. That's a lot of sugar," said Katia Garcia, a nutritionist and researcher for the Power of the Consumer group.

Mexicans are eating more processed snack foods and drinks, refined flour, sugar and energy-dense foods.

"People have been abandoning the traditional diet, tortillas, beans and chili, which are rich in fiber and vitamins," Garcia said.

Mexico is still battling malnutrition so the finding are alarming.  And the country's obesity problem is only likely to get worse.

"Even as nearly half its people are poor and as officials launch a national anti-hunger campaign, Mexico by some accounts recently has replaced the United States as the chubbiest of the globe's larger countries," the report adds.

"Diabetes and cardiovascular ills spike, plus sizes cram clothing racks and Mexicans keep eating, eating, eating."

Doctors warn that obesity and malnourishment in the country often go hand-in-hand.

"The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese," said physician Abelardo Avila with Mexico's National Nutrition Institute.

"In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It's a very serious epidemic."

In fact, according to Mexican authorities, diabetes kills roughly 70,000 Mexicans per year.

In 2011 that Mexico had the highest rate of obesityfor children ages 5 to 19 in the world.

More than 28 percent of children between 5 and 9, and 38 percent of preteens and teenagers ages 10 to 19, are overweight or obese, according to statistics from the Mexican Social Security Institute.

"Obesity and excess weight are multi-factor problems," Labastida said, "so they have to be approached from several perspectives, through advertising campaigns as intense as the ones people are subjected to every day for food products that aren't very recommendable."

While Mexico instituted guidelines in 2010 and 2011 to try to get the worst junk food out of Mexican schools, the results have been poor.

"They sell smaller packages, but that accomplishes nothing, because kids can just buy more packages," Garcia said.