Obesity Epidemic Affects Over 100 Crore People Around the World

According to a global analysis published in The Lancet journal, over 1 billion (100 crore) people around the globe are obese. The obese people include children, adolescents and adults.

The alarming fact is that the analysis of global data by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that among the world’s children and adolescents, the rate of obesity in 2022 was four times the rate in 1990.

Among adults, the obesity rate more than doubled in women and nearly tripled in men. In total, 159 million children and adolescents and 879 million adults were living with obesity in 2022, according to the study published in the Lancet.

“It is very concerning that the epidemic of obesity that was evident among adults in much of the world in 1990 is now mirrored in school-aged children and adolescents,” said senior author Professor Majid Ezzati, from Imperial College London in the UK.

The researchers analysed weight and height measurements from over 220 million people aged five years or older (63 million people aged five to 19 years, and 158 million aged 20 years or older), representing more than 190 countries.

The total number of children and adolescents who were affected by obesity in 2022 was nearly 160 million (65 million girls and 94 million boys), compared to 31 million in 1990.

In total, an estimated nearly 880 million adults were living with obesity in 2022 (504 million women and 374 million men), four and a half times the 195 million recorded in 1990 (128 million women and 67 million men), the researchers said.