India third in weighty health crisis

A STUDY has shown that 2.1 billion people — nearly 30% of the world’s population — are either obese or overweight.

India comes a shocking third in the club of 10 countries with more than 50% of the world’s 671 million obese people.

Looking at individual countries, the highest proportion of the world’s obese people — 13% — live in the US.

China and India together represent 15% of the world’s obese population.

South Africa has the highest overweight and obesity rate in sub-Saharan Africa. It has an obesity rate of 42% for women and 13.5% for men. Seven in 10 women (69.3%) and four in 10 men (38.8%) are overweight or obese. A fifth of SA boys and a quarter of girls are overweight or obese; 7% and 9.6% respectively are obese.

The study finds that the number of overweight and obese individuals globally increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013.

“In the past three decades, not one country has achieved success in reducing obesity rates,” warned Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

“We expect obesity to rise steadily as incomes rise in low- and middle-income countries, in particular, unless urgent steps are taken to address this public health crisis.”

In a first-of-its-kind analysis of trend data from 188 countries, the study, published in The Lancet, claims that the rise in global obesity rates over the past three decades has been substantial and widespread, developing into a major public health epidemic all over the world.

In developed countries, men had higher rates of overweight and obesity, whereas women in developing countries exhibited higher rates. The peak of obesity rates was moving to younger ages in developed countries.

Between 1980 and 2013, the prevalence of overweight or obese children and adolescents increased by nearly 50%.

In 2013, more than 22% of girls and nearly 24% of boys living in developed countries were found to be overweight or obese.

“We know there are severe downstream health effects from childhood obesity, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many cancers,” said Marie Ng, an assistant professor of global health at the institute.

“We need to be thinking now about how to turn this trend around.”

The study notes that more than 50% of the world’s 671 million obese people live in 10 countries — the US, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Over the 33-year period of research, several countries in the Middle East showed the largest increase in obesity globally. They include Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait.

Overweight is defined as having a body mass index or weight-to-height ratio greater than or equal to 25 and lower than 30. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index equal to or greater than 30. — IndoAsian News Service and Own Correspondent