Obesity Trends

Global Obesity Trends

Tracking the Global Epidemic

Once just a problem of wealthy nations, obesity now impacts countries at all economic levels, bringing with it a wave of ill health and lost productivity.

  • Worldwide the rate of obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, with just over 200 million adult men and just under 300 million adult women with obesity. (1)
  • Obesity rates have been steadily rising in children, too: In 2010, 43 million preschool children had overweight or obesity, a 60 percent increase since 1990. (2)
  • A 2014 study of overweight and obesity in children and adults from 1980-2013 found that worldwide, the proportion of adults with overweight or obesity increased, and prevalence also increased substantially in children and adolescents in both developed and developing countries. (3)
  • These jumps in child and adult obesity rates show no sign of stopping without dedicated efforts to combat the epidemic.

Of all high income countries, the United States has the highest rates of overweight and obesity, with fully a third of the population obese-a rate projected to rise to around 50 percent by 2030. (4) As with most health issues, the burden of obesity isn’t felt equally across all parts of society. The poor have higher rates than those with higher income. Those with less education have higher rates than those with more education. And certain minority groups-especially African-American and Hispanic women-have much higher rates than other groups.

Health Risks: An overview of obesity-related diseases and conditions

Beyond North America, the regions of Europe, South and Central America, Western Pacific, and parts of Africa and Asia also have elevated obesity rates, with only a handful of areas with low and consistent levels of obesity.

  • For many low and middle income countries already struggling in the world economy, obesity takes a particularly high toll-sapping productivity, increasing illness in sole wage earners, and further stretching health systems already burdened with persistent problems of infectious disease and even starvation and under nutrition.

The worldwide spread of obesity and resulting increase in rates of chronic disease and other serious conditions threatens health systems, economies, and individual lives. Bringing the problem back under control will take multifaceted country-level as well as global-level efforts, and they cannot begin in earnest soon enough.


References

1. Finucane MM, Stevens GA, Cowan MJ, et al. National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9.1 million participants.

4. de Onis M, Blossner M, Borghi E. Global prevalence and trends of overweight and obesity among preschool children. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;92:1257-64.

3. Ng M, Fleming T, Robinson M, Thomson B, Graetz N, Margono C, Mullany EC, Biryukov S, Abbafati C, Abera SF, Abraham JP, Abu-Rmeileh NM, Achoki T, AlBuhairan FS, Alemu ZA, Alfonso R, Ali MK, Ali R, Guzman NA, Ammar W, Anwari P, Banerjee A, Barquera S, Basu S, Bennett DA, Bhutta Z, Blore J, Cabral N, Nonato IC, Chang JC, Chowdhury R, Courville KJ, Criqui MH, Cundiff DK, Dabhadkar KC, Dandona L, Davis A, Dayama A, Dharmaratne SD, Ding EL, Durrani AM, Esteghamati A, Farzadfar F, Fay DF, Feigin VL, Flaxman A, Forouzanfar MH, Goto A, Green MA, Gupta R, Hafezi-Nejad N, Hankey GJ, Harewood HC, Havmoeller R, Hay S, Hernandez L, Husseini A, Idrisov BT, Ikeda N, Islami F, Jahangir E, Jassal SK, Jee SH, Jeffreys M, Jonas JB, Kabagambe EK, Khalifa SE, Kengne AP, Khader YS, Khang YH, Kim D, Kimokoti RW, Kinge JM, Kokubo Y, Kosen S, Kwan G, Lai T, Leinsalu M, Li Y, Liang X, Liu S, Logroscino G, Lotufo PA, Lu Y, Ma J, Mainoo NK, Mensah GA, Merriman TR, Mokdad AH, Moschandreas J, Naghavi M, Naheed A, Nand D, Narayan KM, Nelson EL, Neuhouser ML, Nisar MI, Ohkubo T, Oti SO, Pedroza A, Prabhakaran D, Roy N, Sampson U, Seo H, Sepanlou SG, Shibuya K, Shiri R, Shiue I, Singh GM, Singh JA, Skirbekk V, Stapelberg NJ, Sturua L, Sykes BL, Tobias M1, Tran BX, Trasande L, Toyoshima H, van de Vijver S, Vasankari TJ, Veerman JL, Velasquez-Melendez G, Vlassov VV, Vollset SE, Vos T, Wang C, Wang X, Weiderpass E, Werdecker A, Wright JL, Yang YC, Yatsuya H, Yoon J, Yoon SJ, Zhao Y, Zhou M, Zhu S, Lopez AD, Murray CJ, Gakidou E. Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet. 2014 384(9945):766-81.

4. Wang YC, McPherson K, Marsh T, Gortmaker SL, Brown M. Health and economic burden of the projected obesity trends in the USA and the UK. Lancet. 2011;378:815-25.