OH! Magazine - Australian Version August 2016 | Page 12

( Nutrition )

THE WORLD'S OBESITY
EPIDEMIC

Dr Joanna shares the alarming statistics regarding
obesity levels around the world.
n the past 40 years, there has been a
startling increase in the number of
obese people worldwide – rising from 105
million in 1975 to 641 million in 2014,
according to the most comprehensive analysis
of trends in body mass index (BMI) to date,
published in The Lancet.

I

Did you know...
•

by 2025, around a fifth of adults
worldwide will be obese; and

•

over a third of UK men and women, and
over 40 per cent of US men and women
will be obese by 2025.

The age-corrected proportion of obese men
has more than tripled (3.2 per cent to 10.8
per cent), and the proportion of obese women
has more than doubled (6.4 per cent to 14.9
per cent) since 1975. At the same time, the
proportion of underweight people fell more
modestly – by around a third in both men
(13.8 per cent to 8.8 per cent) and women
(14.6 per cent to 9.7 per cent).
Over the past four decades, the average
age-corrected BMI has increased from 21.7kg/
m² to 24.2 kg/m² in men, and from 22.1kg/m²
to 24.4 kg/m² in women, which is equivalent
to the world’s population becoming 1.5kg
heavier each decade (on average).
If the rate of obesity continues at this pace,
by 2025 18 per cent of men and 21 per cent
of women worldwide will be obese, and more

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AUGUST 2016 (OH! MAGAZINE)

than 6 per cent of men and 9 per cent of
women will be severely obese (35kg/m² or
greater).
However, excessively low body weight remains
a serious public health issue in the world’s
poorest regions, and the authors warn that
global trends in rising obesity should not
overshadow the continuing underweight
problem in these poor nations. For example, in
south Asia almost a quarter of the population
are still underweight, and in central and east
Africa levels of underweight still remain higher
than 12 per cent in women and 15 per cent in
men.
Senior author Professor Majid Ezzati from the
School of Public Health at Imperial College
London (UK) explains, saying 'Over the past
40 years we have changed from a world in
which underweight prevalence was more than
double that of obesity, to one in which more
people are obese than underweight'. Professor
Ezzati adds, 'If present trends continue, not
only will the world not meet the obesity target
of halting the rise in the prevalence of obesity
at its 2010 level by 2025, but more women
will be severely obese than underweight by
2025. To avoid an epidemic of severe obesity,
new policies that can slow down and stop the
worldwide increase in body weight must be
implemented quickly and rigorously evaluated,
including smart food policies and improved
health-care training.'
The findings come from a comprehensive new
analysis of the global, regional, and national