- Those with body mass index of 25-plus are classed as obese or overweight
- Obese and overweight adults are at greater risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancers, diabetes and other health-related issues
- In the UK, 64 per cent of adults are now classed in this category
By
William Turvill
06:16 EST, 4 January 2014
|
09:57 EST, 4 January 2014
A third of adults across the world are now classed as obese or overweight.
A global ‘explosion’ means that 1.46 billion adults across the globe are obese or overweight – meaning they have body mass indexes greater than 25.
In the UK, 64 per cent of adults are classed in this category and are at greater risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancers, diabetes and other health-related issues.
A third of adults – 1.46 billion – across the world are now classed as overweight or obese
In the developing world, the number of obese and overweight adults has quadrupled from 250 million in 1980 to 904 million in 2008.
By contrast, the number of people who
were overweight or obese in high-income countries increased by 1.7 times
over the same period.
The research was conducted by the Overseas Development Institute, which also warned of the associated health risks of the trend.
It suggested that changing diets and over-consumption of food linked to increased prosperity in the developing world was largely behind the change.
As incomes increase, diets are shifting from cereals and grains to a greater consumption of meats, fats and sugars.
The ODI’s Future Diets report found that the percentage of adults who were overweight or obese globally grew from 23 per cent to 34 per cent between 1980 and 2008.
At the same time, under-nourishment is still a problem for hundreds of millions of people.
Based on World Health Organisation statistics, this graph shows the proportion and percentage of adults across the world classified as obese or overweight, categorised by income
The overweight are at risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancers, diabetes and other health-related issues
‘The over-consumption of food, coupled with lives that are increasingly sedentary, is producing large numbers of people who are overweight and obese – primarily in high-income countries, but also in emerging middle-income countries,’ the report said.
‘Indeed, the world has seen an explosion in overweight and obesity in the past 30 years.’
The ODI examined changing overweight and obesity rates across world regions and by individual country using data published in Population Health Metrics last year, the BBC said.
This revealed that North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America saw overweight and obesity rates increase to a level similar to Europe, around 58 per cent.
At 70 per cent, North America still has the highest percentage of overweight adults, but regions such as Australasia and southern Latin America are catching up, with 63 per cent.
Report author Dr Steve Wiggins said that those with higher incomes had greater ability to choose the foods they want, the BBC said, while changes in lifestyle, increased availability of processed foods and influences such as advertising and media have led to dietary changes, particularly in emerging economies.
With data from Stevens et al., 2012, this graph shows the proportion of adults overweight in 1980 and 2008
This graphic, based on figures from Stevens et al, 2012, shows the changing proportion of obese adults in the developing world (dark orange) compared with the high income world (pale) in millions
The report said: ‘The evidence is well-established: obesity, together with excessive consumption of fat and salt, is linked to the rising global incidence of non-communicable diseases including some cancers, diabetes, heart disease and strokes.
‘What has changed is that the majority of people who are overweight or obese today can be found in the developing, rather than the developed, world.’
The ODI said there was ‘little will’ among the public and leaders to take action to influence future diets, ‘but that may change in the face of serious health implications’.
And it highlighted the ‘paradox of public policy’, saying: ‘In general, there is little appetite amongst politicians or the public in high-income countries to take strong measures to influence future diets.
‘Politicians are fearful of meddling with diets, and alienating farming and food-industry interests. It seems that this reflects public opinion, with many people seeing food choices as a matter of personal freedom.
‘Most people hate to see regulation of the access to favoured foods, see taxation of unhealthy foods and ingredients as onerous and unfair, and acquiesce only in response to public information and education.
‘Couple this with lobbying from food industries, and the political will to affect diets withers.’
The report gave the example of South Korea as having made concerted efforts to preserve healthy elements of the country’s traditional diet, via public campaigns and education, providing large-scale training for women in preparing healthy, traditional food.
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Nina Carter,
Princeton, United States,
1 hour ago
People are overweight and obese because healthy food is too expensive, there are too many preservatives in the food they can afford; they then can’t exercise because the crap they’ve been eating makes them feel horrible and they lack the proper energy. Food industries don’t care if any of us are healthy. They only care about how much money they can make. So until something happens to help everyone “afford†to be healthy, there will never be a change and everyone will die of heart disease and diabetes.
John,
Tulsa,
2 hours ago
Can you say, fast food, all you can eat buffets, and no exercise other than walking from your car to the grocer for more food?
Im,
Cambridge, United Kingdom,
2 hours ago
There is just one slight problem to all this, who actually set the standard for obesity, BMI’s are nonsense since virtually every rugby player or other sportsman who relies on strength would be classed as obese. It was dreamed up by people who make their living telling everyone what they should eat and look like. Take out the financial element from all this and the world will be a lot more happy place.
Vic,
Adelaide,
2 hours ago
Notice most of the low fat labelled products in the super markets are on the products that you probably shouldn’t eat anyway, such as, biscuits, cereal bars, crisps, snacks, breads, etc etc.
Vic,
Adelaide,
2 hours ago
Funny how this epidemic coincides with the low fat, high grains, vegetable oil hypothesis that began in 1980.
CYGNE,
South West, United Kingdom,
3 hours ago
dont be too harsh now, mot of the women on DM ‘love their curves’ and nothing you can say will dissuade them!
Brutus,
Soufend On Sea, United Kingdom,
3 hours ago
Look at those nasty fat calves. Ewww..pass the sick bucket.
MackS,
Los Angeles, United States,
2 hours ago
Bristol Expat now NZ,
wellington, New Zealand,
2 hours ago
rwta,
Abergele, United Kingdom,
3 hours ago
What can be done about it? Really people will only change if they want to.
girly_,
Nottingham UK,
3 hours ago
I’m so fed up of the health mafia.
I’m obese apparently at 5’4? and 11 stone and I run every day for 30 mins.
I have always been heavy and wear UK 10 to 12 clothes.
Is that really obese?
Or just an easy target as I taking care to eat well and exercise?
Oh- I’m a nutrition graduate but not for the NHS.
It’s all going a little crazy
Lee,
London England,
3 hours ago
Rich or poor or whatever we are eating we just have too much access to food, and it is not really what we eat, we just eat too much of it. Our jaws have just been trained to chomp, we are very unorganised, and we are at the point where automation has taken over that we do not even have to use hand muscles to write, we can just type or just point and touch. That is the problem just too much food and not enough activities.
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