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by Dr. Gail Wasserman - Thursday, 3 October 2024, 1:26 PM
Number of replies: 0
From the World Health Organization:
Key facts
In 2022, 1 in 8 people in the world were living with obesity.
Worldwide adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled.
In 2022, 2.5 billion adults (18 years and older) were overweight. Of these, 890 million were living with obesity.
In 2022, 43% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight and 16% were living with obesity.
In 2022, 37 million children under the age of 5 were overweight.
Over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 years were overweight in 2022, including 160 million who were living with obesity.
Overview
Overweight is a condition of excessive fat deposits.

Obesity is a chronic complex disease defined by excessive fat deposits that can impair health. Obesity can lead to increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, it can affect bone health and reproduction, it increases the risk of certain cancers. Obesity influences the quality of living, such as sleeping or moving.

The diagnosis of overweight and obesity is made by measuring people’s weight and height and by calculating the body mass index (BMI): weight (kg)/height² (m²). The body mass index is a surrogate marker of fatness and additional measurements, such as the waist circumference, can help the diagnosis of obesity.

The BMI categories for defining obesity vary by age and gender in infants, children and adolescents.

Adults
For adults, WHO defines overweight and obesity as follows:

overweight is a BMI greater than or equal to 25; and
obesity is a BMI greater than or equal to 30.
For children, age needs to be considered when defining overweight and obesity.

Children under 5 years of age
For children under 5 years of age:

overweight is weight-for-height greater than 2 standard deviations above WHO Child Growth Standards median; and
obesity is weight-for-height greater than 3 standard deviations above the WHO Child Growth Standards median.
Charts and tables: WHO child growth standards for children aged under 5 years

Children aged between 5–19 years
Overweight and obesity are defined as follows for children aged between 5–19 years:

overweight is BMI-for-age greater than 1 standard deviation above the WHO Growth Reference median; and
obesity is greater than 2 standard deviations above the WHO Growth Reference median.
Charts and tables: WHO growth reference for children aged between 5–19 years

Facts about overweight and obesity
In 2022, 2.5 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight, including over 890 million adults who were living with obesity. This corresponds to 43% of adults aged 18 years and over (43% of men and 44% of women) who were overweight; an increase from 1990, when 25% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight. Prevalence of overweight varied by region, from 31% in the WHO South-East Asia Region and the African Region to 67% in the Region of the Americas.

About 16% of adults aged 18 years and older worldwide were obese in 2022. The worldwide prevalence of obesity more than doubled between 1990 and 2022.

In 2022, an estimated 37 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight. Once considered a high-income country problem, overweight is on the rise in low- and middle-income countries. In Africa, the number of overweight children under 5 years has increased by nearly 23% since 2000. Almost half of the children under 5 years who were overweight or living with obesity in 2022 lived in Asia.

Over 390 million children and adolescents aged 5–19 years were overweight in 2022. The prevalence of overweight (including obesity) among children and adolescents aged 5–19 has risen dramatically from just 8% in 1990 to 20% in 2022. The rise has occurred similarly among both boys and girls: in 2022 19% of girls and 21% of boys were overweight.

While just 2% of children and adolescents aged 5–19 were obese in 1990 (31 million young people), by 2022, 8% of children and adolescents were living with obesity (160 million young people).

Causes of overweight and obesity
Overweight and obesity result from an imbalance of energy intake (diet) and energy expenditure (physical activity).

In most cases obesity is a multifactorial disease due to obesogenic environments, psycho-social factors and genetic variants. In a subgroup of patients, single major etiological factors can be identified (medications, diseases, immobilization, iatrogenic procedures, monogenic disease/genetic syndrome).

The obesogenic environment exacerbating the likelihood of obesity in individuals, populations and in different settings is related to structural factors limiting the availability of healthy sustainable food at locally affordable prices, lack of safe and easy physical mobility into the daily life of all people, and absence of adequate legal and regulatory environment.

At the same time, the lack of an effective health system response to identify excess weight gain and fat deposition in their early stages is aggravating the progression to obesity.

Common health consequences
The health risks caused by overweight and obesity are increasingly well documented and understood.

In 2019, higher-than-optimal BMI caused an estimated 5 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, neurological disorders, chronic respiratory diseases, and digestive disorders (1).

Being overweight in childhood and adolescence affects children’s and adolescents’ immediate health and is associated with greater risk and earlier onset of various NCDs, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Childhood and adolescent obesity have adverse psychosocial consequences; it affects school performance and quality of life, compounded by stigma, discrimination and bullying. Children with obesity are very likely to be adults with obesity and are also at a higher risk of developing NCDs in adulthood.

The economic impacts of the obesity epidemic are also important. If nothing is done, the global costs of overweight and obesity are predicted to reach US$ 3 trillion per year by 2030 and more than US$ 18 trillion by 2060 (2).

Finally, the rise in obesity rates in low-and middle-income countries, including among lower socio-economic groups, is fast globalizing a problem that was once associated only with high-income countries.

Answer 1

Subject: Re: Key Facts on Obesity from WHO

Dear Dr. Wasserman,

Thank you for sharing this comprehensive overview on obesity from the World Health Organization. The statistics are indeed alarming and underscore the urgent need for effective public health interventions.

It's especially troubling to note the sharp increase in obesity rates not only among adults but also among children and adolescents. The multifactorial causes of obesity highlighted in your message, including the influence of our environment and socio-economic factors, necessitate a holistic approach to address this issue.

I believe this data can serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, healthcare providers, and communities to work together in creating supportive environments that promote healthy eating and active lifestyles. It is crucial to ensure access to healthy food options and safe spaces for physical activity, especially in underserved areas.

Furthermore, drawing attention to the economic implications illustrates the vast consequences of inaction. The projected costs associated with obesity reinforce the importance of implementing preventative measures now to alleviate the financial burden in the future.

Thank you again for bringing this important information to our attention. I look forward to further discussions on how we can contribute to solutions in this area.

Best regards,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Institution]