Well over a billion people are overweight; this number is rising rapidly

The number of people who are seriously overweight – called obesity – has risen rapidly. According to a 2022 study, over a billion people were affected worldwide.

The share of seriously overweight people in the population has more than doubled since 1990. even quadrupled among adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19, the journal “The Lancet” reported. The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva was involved in the study.

In some affluent countries and certain population and age groups, the numbers are now reaching a plateau or declining slightly, says Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London, for example among women in Spain and France. Finding out the exact reasons for this was not part of the analysis.

Obesity can cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. “Obesity is a chronic disease defined as an increase in body fat that exceeds normal levels,” writes the German Obesity Association. Whether someone suffers from this is calculated based on their weight and height, the body mass index (BMI). From a BMI of 30, society speaks of “Obesity Grade I”.

In 2022, a total of 880 million adults and 159 million children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19 were seriously overweight. In 2022, 9.3 percent of boys were considered obese, compared to 6.9 percent of girls. Among adults, the share among women has doubled to 18.5 percent since 1990, and among men it has tripled to 14 percent.

The highest overall obesity rates were in Pacific island nations such as Niue, Tonga and American Samoa, sometimes above 60 percent. Qatar, Egypt, Chile and the US also ranked in the top ten in individual categories. Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Vietnam and Ethiopia recorded the lowest figures. The increase was rapid, including in the US: the share of obese women rose from 21.2 percent in 1990 to 43.8 percent in 2022, and among men the share rose from 16.9 percent to 41.6 percent.

Obesity can be prevented through good nutrition and exercise from childhood, WHO reports. Governments should ensure that foods and drinks high in salt, fat or sugar are not sold near schools and that advertising of these foods to children is limited. They should also campaign about the benefits of good diet and exercise. The WHO recognized that good nutrition can be expensive.

The other side of the nutritional problem: At the same time, hundreds of millions of people around the world are still affected by malnutrition and malnutrition. says the study, especially in countries in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Malnutrition is responsible for half of all deaths among children under the age of five. According to the WHO, severe obesity and malnutrition are two sides of the same problem: poor nutrition. (saw/sda/dpa)