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There are now more than one billion people living with obesity worldwide, with one in eight of the population affected, new analysis reveals. Around 159 million children and adolescents and 879 million adults weigh so much relative to their height that it classifies them as obese.
Obesity rates among youngsters quadrupled globally between 1990 and 2022 – the latest statistics available – while rates among adults more than doubled, researchers found.
Meanwhile, the number of those underweight dropped among children and adolescents, and more than halved among adults worldwide.
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This means obesity is now the most common form of weight disorder in many countries, according to the study published in The Lancet medical journal.
In the UK, about 16.8 million people are living with obesity. These include 8 million women, 7.4 million men, 760 000 boys and 590 000 girls.
Globally, the obesity rate more than doubled in women, nearly tripled in men and more than quadrupled in girls and boys from 1990 to 2022.
Places with the highest prevalence of obesity include Tonga, American Samoa, Polynesia and Micronesia, and the Cook Islands and Niue.
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The study was conducted by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a network of health scientists around the world, in collaboration with the World Health Organization. The researchers used the body mass index (BMI) – which is calculated by dividing the weight (kg) by the height (m) squared – to understand how obesity and underweight have changed worldwide over three decades.
The team gathered data from more than 3 000 population studies involving 222 million people. The researchers said that, although BMI was an imperfect measure for determining the extent of body fat, it was widely recorded in population-based surveys. – MailOnline
