Sentence correction

The US is the leading country as measured by obesity rates.

Sorry to interrupt, Alphessatars Mam. Could you please tell me what 'as' means in your sentence? I didn't get the meaning of as in you sentence.

See definition entry #5
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/as

I couldn't get it, Mam.

Thanks. But is it wrong to say ...... is leading country in obesity? Is there another way of saying this using the word leading?

Paraphrase:

If you measure obesity rates (the percentage of population that is obese) for all the different countries, the US will have the highest measure.

Thank you. But just out of curiosity, is the sentence I wrote wrong:

The US is now the leading country in obesity

I have read something similar in various sources.

Anonymous But just out of curiosity, is the sentence I wrote wrong:

It can be understood, but it sounds strange.

AnonymousThe US is now the leading country in obesity

It sounds like the country is overweight, not the people who live there. But most people would figure out the meaning.

Compare with this:
The US is now the leading country in gross national product.
The gross national product makes sense. It is the country's total annual production in goods

AlpheccaStarsBut most people would figure out the meaning.

One would hope! You know, it's amazing how many grammatical infractions are replaced in our minds by what was really intended. It's somewhat like that internet image that shows a paragraph where all the words are terribly misspelled, even though the paragraph is totally understandable with jus