1 in 5 adults will be obese by 2025 globally

by Stepy — April 7, 2016

1 in 5 adults will be obese by 2025 globally, and there is no avoiding it.

Obesity is a complex disorder involving excess body fat. It is not just a cosmetic concern, but it increases the risk of health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), worldwide obesity has more than doubled since the year 1980, and rates continue to rise. WHO estimates that about 600 million people worldwide were obese in the year 2014.

Despite efforts by the UN to curb obesity, a new study shows that 1 in 5 adults will be obese by 2025 globally.

“Over the past 40 years, we have changed from a world in which underweight prevalence was more than double that of obesity to one in which more people are obese than underweight,” Majid Ezzati, a professor of public health at Imperial College London and the study’s lead author, told The Guardian.

Many experts blame the “Western” diet, which is high in added sugars, fats, and carbs. It is a diet that is slowly being adopted around the world.

The researchers explained the implication of their studies:

The global focus on the obesity epidemic has largely overshadowed the persistence of underweight in some countries.
Although adiposity has been consistently shown to be an independent risk factor for several NCDs in individual-level epidemiological studies, at the population level, the effect of rising BMI on the course of mortality reduction has so far been somewhat small in high-income countries.

The researchers concluded:

The world has transitioned from an era when underweight prevalence was more than double that of obesity, to one in which more people are obese than underweight. However, underweight remains a public health problem in the world’s poorest regions—namely south Asia and central and east Africa. If present trends continue, not only will the world not meet the global obesity target, but severe obesity will also surpass underweight in women by 2025.

The study showing that 1 in 5 adults will be obese by 2025 globally was published in the journal The Lancet.

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REFERENCES:
1. “Obesity and Overweight.” WHO. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
2. “There’s No Hope of Halting the Obesity Crisis in the Next Decade.” TakePart. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
3. “Trends in Adult Body-mass Index in 200 Countries from 1975 to 2014: A Pooled Analysis of 1698 Population-based Measurement Studies with 19·2 Million Participants.” The Lancet. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
4. “Report: Governments Must Act to Reverse Childhood Obesity.” UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.