More than 2 billion people in the world are now overweight or obese, up from less than a billion a few decades ago, according to a new global report.
The new figure more than double the 857 million overweight or obese people that were estimated in 1980, according to Emmanuela Gakidou, PhD, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues.
- Note that this global study demonstrates that obesity is truly a pandemic, increasingly affecting under-developed countries.
- Note that the epidemic may be leveling off in some developed countries.
Between 1980 and 2013, worldwide overweight and obesity rose from about 29% to 40% in men and from 30% to 38% in women, they reported online in The Lancet.
But the tide may be turning, at least in developed countries, the researchers said. The greatest global gains happened between 1992 and 2002, mostly in people ages 20 to 40, and there's some evidence of a slowdown in the years since.
"[This] 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," Gakidou said in a statement.
Unfortunately in developing countries, waistlines are still expanding and are expected to continue doing so. The greatest increases in obesity levels among women have been in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Honduras, and Bahrain, and among men in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the U.S. and New Zealand.
Also, at least half of men in Tonga and half of women in Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, and the Pacific Islands of Kiribati, Micronesia, and Samoa are overweight or obese, the researchers said.
With regard to gender, men have higher rates of obesity in the developed world, but in the developing world, women are heavier, they reported. As for children, almost a quarter of kids across the globe were overweight or obese in 2013, they added.
Hermann Toplak, MD, of the University of Graz in Austria and the president-elect of the European Association for the Study of Obesity -- which is holding its annual conference this week in Sofia, Bulgaria -- said in a statement that the problem started with the advent of wider availability of food in the late 1970s.
"Over the past decades, the modernization of our world, with all the technology around us, has led to physical inactivity on all levels. It is well known that people who stop exercising lose the control of their food intake, whereas those who continue exercising eat adequately in relation to their energy needs," Toplak said.
"Especially in developed countries, the availability of food increased everywhere in the late 1970s and this was further exaggerated in the following decades -- with a substantial increase in the influence of 'fast food,'" he continued. "The result of these developments are that in today's society many children -- and indeed adults -- no longer build up enough muscle mass and functionality, and have lost the culture of 'classical eating,' which has instead been replaced by uncontrolled food intake with a snacking and eating culture spread over the whole day."
"The solution has to be mainly political, and the question remains, as with climate change, where is the international will to act decisively in a way that might restrict economic growth in a competitive world, for the public's health," he wrote. "Nowhere yet, but voluntary salt reduction might be setting a more achievable trend. Politicians can no longer hide behind ignorance or confusion."
Co-authors reported relationships with Boehringer Ingelheim, Takeda, Savient, Regeneron, and Allergan.
McPherson reported no relevant financial disclosures.
Source Reference: Ng M, et al "Global, retional, 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; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60460-8.