International collaboration reveals alarming rise in global obesity

The total number of children, adolescents and adults around the world living with obesity exceeds 1 billion, according to a global analysis published in 2017. lancet.

These trends, combined with a decline in the prevalence of underweight people since 1990, have made obesity the most common form of malnutrition in the majority of countries around the world.

This new study was carried out by the NCD Risk Factors Collaboration (NCD-RisC), a network of more than 1,500 researchers and practitioners around the world, including the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College London. . Timely data on key risk factors for non-communicable diseases.

The study, conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), found that obesity rates among children and adolescents worldwide increased fourfold from 1990 to 2022, while obesity rates among adults more than doubled. It was shown that

Martin Mackie, Professor of European Public Health at LSHTM, who contributed to the research, said:

“This analysis is the result of a remarkable international collaboration led by colleagues at Imperial College.

“The rise in obesity is extremely worrying and risks reversing many of the medical advances we have benefited from over recent decades.

“This also shows that there is something very wrong with our food system, which is increasingly reliant on industrial production of energy-dense foods.

“This problem can only be tackled through concerted action that puts health at the center of policy discussions in areas such as agriculture and trade.”

In 2022, the highest combined rates of underweight and obesity were in island nations in the Pacific and Caribbean, and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Across the UK, obesity rates among adults increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 28.3% of women in 2022, and from 10.7% of men to 26.9% in 2022. Obesity rates among children and adolescents increased from 4.7% in 1990 to 10.1% in 2022 for girls, and from 4.3% to 12.4% in 2022 for boys.

In the United States, obesity rates among adult women increased from 21.2% in 1990 to 43.8% in 2022, and among men from 16.9% to 41.6% in 2022. Obesity rates among children and adolescents across the United States increased from 11.6% in 1990 to 19.4% for girls and from 11.5% to 21.7% for boys in 2022.