There has been a global increase in obesity rates, with the number of obese and overweight individuals jumping from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013, according to new statistic reports.
Even through recent reports have highlighted a significant decline in obesity rates in the United States, a new reports reveals that there has been an increase in such rates globally over the last 33 years. According to a study conducted by a team of University researchers, the number of obese and overweight individuals jumped from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013. This includes a 28 percent rise among adults and 47 percent rise among children.
Findings of this study are based on a comprehensive new analysis of the global, regional, and national prevalence of obesity in adults aged 20 years and older and children and adolescents aged 2-19 years between 1980 and 2013.
Unfortunately, not one country has been successful in tackling this growing epidemic, which is so fierce that the American Medical Association was compelled to term obesity as a disease rather than a disorder. Of course, the organization's decision faced a lot of criticism and scrutiny, but no one can deny that this weight disorder has a dramatic effect on people's lives.
"Unlike other major global health risks, such as tobacco and childhood nutrition, obesity is not decreasing worldwide. Our findings show that increases in the prevalence of obesity have been substantial, widespread, and have arisen over a short time," Professor Emmanuela Gakidou from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in a press statement. "However, there is some evidence of a plateau in adult obesity rates that provides some hope that the epidemic might have peaked in some developed countries and that populations in other countries might not reach the very high rates of more than 40% reported in some developing countries."
Though obesity rates vary across the world, more than half of the world's 671 million obese individuals live in just 10 countries. The United States has more than 13 percent of this number, while China and India combined account for 15 percent of obese people across the globe. Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia are the remaining countries, in order of the number of obese individual in each region.
U.S., Australia and U.K. have the highest obesity rates among high-income countries. According to CDC estimations, more than one third of the American population is obese. In Australia, 28 percent men and 30 percent women have weight problems. In U.K., 25 percent of the adult population is obese.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Honduras and Bahrain have reported the highest obesity rates among women in the last 3 decades, while New Zealand, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. have the highest number of obese men.
"Obesity is a complex issue that requires action at national, local, family and individual level; everyone has a role to play in improving the health and well-being of the public, and children in particular." Prof John Newton, chief knowledge officer at Public Health England said, according to BBC News.
The study also found that men have higher rates of obesity than women in developed countries, while the reverse is true for developing countries. Researchers also noted that more than 62 percent of the obese people in the world live in developing countries. Developed countries have also witnessed a significant rise in childhood obesity rates, which has increased by 7 percent among both boys and girls between 1980 and 2013. In developed countries, the rate of increase in adult obesity has started to slow down in the past 8 years, and there is some evidence that more recent birth cohorts are gaining weight more slowly than previous ones.
Currently, the United Nation has set a target for reducing rising obesity rates by 2050. However, authors of this new study call this target "overly ambitious" and "almost impossible to achieve."
"Our analysis suggests that the UN's target to stop the rise in obesity by 2025 is very ambitious and is unlikely to be achieved without concerted action and further research to assess the effect of population-wide interventions, and how to effectively translate that knowledge into national obesity control programmes," Professor Klim McPherson from Oxford University in the U.K. said. "In particular, urgent global leadership is needed to help low-and middle-income countries intervene to reduce excessive calorie intake, physical inactivity, and active promotion of food consumption by industry."
The study was published online in the journal Lancet and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
