Obesity Crisis: Two billion people

[tao]

Obesity Crisis: Two Billion People Now Overweight and U.S. Is One of the Fattest Nations on Earth

 

More than two million (sic) [billion] people across the globe are now either overweight or obese, according to global report studying tens of millions of people. By analyzing data on 195 countries, researchers have found the fattest nations on Earth, with American Samoa topping the list for the proportion of obese people.

 

When looking just at the 100 most populated countries, scientists found Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the U.S. had the highest obesity levels, with 27.5, 26.8 and 26.5 percent of people respectively having a body mass index over 30 (the criteria to classify a person as obese).

 

The Global Burden of Disease 2015 Obesity Collaborators looked a data on 68.5 million people to assess body weight trends between 1980 and 2015. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date view of the ongoing obesity crisis around the globe.

 

Findings reveal that 2.2 billion people across the globe are now either overweight or obese—this represents around 30 percent of all people on Earth.

 

Graphic showing the countries with the highest levels of obesity within the 100 most populated nations. Newsweek

 

The prevalence of obesity doubled in 70 countries since 1980—and has increased in almost all other nations. In total, almost 108 million children are now classified obese, and over 600 million adults. “Although the prevalence of obesity among children has been lower than among adults, the rate of increase in childhood obesity in many countries was greater than that of adults,” the authors wrote.

 

The five nations and territories with the highest rates of obesity are American Samoa, Tonga, Samoa, Kuwait and Kiribati. When only looking at the 100 most populous nations on Earth, these are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the U.S., South Africa and Iraq.

 

The U.S. had the highest rate of childhood obesity in the 100 most populated nations, with 12.7 percent of children classified as obese. Saudi Arabia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Chile made up the rest of the top five.

 

The researchers also found four million people had died as a result of excess body weight in 2015—a figure that looks set to increase as more and more people suffer health problems as a result of being overweight or obese.

 

The report, scientists say, highlights a “growing and disturbing” trend taking place across the globe.

 

Graphic showing the countries with the highest level of childhood obesity within the 100 most populated nations.

 

Ashkan Afshin, lead author of the study, said: "Excess body weight is one of the most challenging public health problems of our time, affecting nearly one in every three people. Over the past decade, numerous interventions have been evaluated, but very little evidence exists about their long-term effectiveness.

 

“Over the next 10 years, we will closely with the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in monitoring and evaluating the progress of countries in controlling overweight and obesity. Moreover, we will share data and findings with scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders seeking evidence-based strategies to address this problem."

 

In a related editorial, Edward Gregg, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Jonathan Shaw, from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia, said the study “offers a discouraging reminder that the global obesity epidemic is worsening in most parts of the world.”

 

They said that while there are some limitations to the study, such as the assumption that the risk of obesity outcomes are uniform across populations, the findings show the “magnitude” of the problem facing public health officials around the world.

 

< Those who prefer a tabloid newspaper, please read it here >

 

 

 

[virge]

More than 10 percent of the world’s population is now obese, a marked rise over the last 30 years that is leading to widespread health problems and millions of premature deaths, according to a new study, the most comprehensive research done on the subject.

 

Published Monday in The New England Journal of Medicine, the study showed that the problem had swept the globe, including regions that have historically had food shortages, like Africa.

 

The study, compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and funded by the Gates Foundation, looked at 195 countries, essentially the world’s population, finding that rates of obesity at least doubled in 73 countries — including Turkey, Venezuela and Bhutan — from 1980 to 2015, and “continuously increased in most other countries.”

 

Analyzing some 1,800 data sets from around the world, researchers found that excess weight played a role in four million deaths in 2015, from heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and other factors. The per capita death rate was up 28 percent since 1990 and, notably, 40 percent of the deaths were among people who were overweight but not heavy enough to be classified as obese.

 

The study defined obese as a body mass index of 30 or higher and overweight as a B.M.I. from 25 to 29.

 

By those measures, nearly 604 million adults worldwide are obese and 108 million children, the authors reported. Obesity rates among children are rising faster in many countries than among adults.

 

In the United States, 12.5 percent of children were obese, up from 5 percent in 1980. Combining children and adults, the United States had the dubious distinction of having the largest increase in percentile points of any country, a jump of 16 percentage points to 26.5 percent of the overall population.

 

A range of nutrition scientists, including ones who differ significantly on some issues in the field, uniformly praised the breadth, depth and quality of the study, and the significance of its message.

“Its global implications are huge,” said Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. He echoed others in saying the findings tend to also affirm smaller, more regional studies.

 

“This study shows what we know: No country in the globe has reduced overweight or obesity levels. This is astounding given the huge health and economic costs linked with overweight and obesity.”

 

The study largely did not go deeply into the causes of obesity, but the authors said the growing accessibility of inexpensive, nutrient-poor packaged foods was probably a major factor and the general slowdown in physical activity was probably not.

“The change in physical activity preceded the global increase in obesity,” said Dr. Ashkan Afshin, assistant professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and lead author of the study.

 

“We have more processed food, more energy-dense food, more intense marketing of food products, and these products are more available and more accessible,” he added. “The food environment seems to be the main driver of obesity.”

 

Others agreed on the availability of poor diet, noting that such food can often be the most accessible and affordable.

 

“What people eat is the key factor in whether they become obese or not,” said Adam Drewnowsk, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, who was not affiliated with the study, which he deemed “brilliant work by the best people in the business.”

 

He said getting people healthy food was easier said than done.

 

“It is all very nice to talk about the need to eat less unhealthy foods and more healthy foods,” he said. But “unhealthy foods cost less; healthier foods often cost more. People eat what they can afford.”

 

The research characterized growth of obesity in two ways, one that looked at countries that had the biggest leap in percentage points. After the United States, other countries with particularly significant jumps in percent of the population who are obese included Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt.

 

But other countries had rates that rose much faster, even though they remained lower as an overall percent of the population. Broadly, the fastest rises were found in Latin America, Africa and China.

In China, for example, less than 1 percent of the population was obese in 1980, but now more than 5 percent is, a fivefold increase. The rise in childhood obesity in China roughly paralleled that overall change.

 

Three countries in Africa — Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea-Bissau — had the fastest growth. Burkina Faso, the country with the fastest growth in the world in obesity, began in 1980 with around one-third of a percent of its population as obese. Its rate rose to nearly 7 percent of the population.

 

“The future health and economic burden facing all these countries is immense,” Dr. Popkin said.

 

Regarding the overall health implications of the study, one point made by the researchers is that there is a good news/bad news pattern emerging. The good news is that the disease burden caused by obesity is actually falling in some of the wealthiest nations. In the United States, the death rates associated with obesity fell from 63 per 100,000 in 1990 (the baseline year for this measure) to 61 per 100,000 people, reflecting medications that deal with the effects of obesity, like hypertension.

 

The bad news is those remedies are not available in developing countries or are available only to the wealthiest people, leading to growing rates of associated deaths and without a clear solution.

 

“Most of the obese people are dying because of cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” said Dr. Afshin, lead author of the study. That has been somewhat mitigated in the United States “and other developed nations” with the use of drugs.

 

“But we cannot have all people on drugs,” he said. “Ideally, we want to go to the root causes and address the problem of overeating.”

 

To date, he said, no country “has been able to control the food environment, which seems to be the main driver of obesity.”

 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/health/obesity-study-10-percent-globally.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

[Batu69]

Topic merged.

[Jogs]

These people should try to eat less and whatever money is saved should be donated to those countries where people die of hunger. It will be beneficial for both of them.

[tao]

1 hour ago, Jogs said:

These people should try to eat less and whatever money is saved should be donated to those countries where people die of hunger. It will be beneficial for both of them.

The concept is great.  The key is the implementation (computer jargon).

I can't seem to do simple stuff that, I have always known, are good for me.

How could I advise "other people?" 

We as humans know that our obvious solutions never work -- for some mysterious reasons. 

 

“I talk to my inner lover, and I say, why such rush?
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves
birds and animals and the ants--
perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you
in your mother's womb.
Is it logical you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself,
and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten
what you once knew,
and that's why everything you do has some weird sense of failure in it.”
~ Kabir  

 

[Sylence]

3 hours ago, Jogs said:

These people should try to eat less and whatever money is saved should be donated to those countries where people die of hunger. It will be beneficial for both of them.

 

I see South Africa in the list..

[pc71520]

Crazy World:

 

Countries are fighting against Obesity

while

other ones are fighting against Hunger!

 

[tao]

20 minutes ago, pc71520 said:

Crazy World:

Countries are fighting against Obesity

while

other ones are fighting against Hunger!

Crazy Country:

Country fighting against Obesity

while

some citizens fighting daily hunger. 

[steven36]

22 hours ago, Jogs said:

These people should try to eat less and whatever money is saved should be donated to those countries where people die of hunger. It will be beneficial for both of them.

That want help  when most in the world  have there butt planted on a seat with a PC or smart phone . I knew Obese people who try too lose weight all the time  by dieting and it never helps . Because It not really got too do with over eating it's got too do with they don't  get enough exercise too burn off  the fat that they eat. As more and more computer jobs take the place of manual labor jobs were you have to sweat it off the more problems the world will have with this . In the old days people use to go out  and work in the fields  from dawn to dusk  or they would starve to death . This is not a new problem  todays generation was raised up  around  today's lazy tech.

 

Overweight? Blame the Internet

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32862449/ns/health-fitness/t/overweight-blame-internet/

 

How your computer is making you fat

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48757019/ns/health-fitness/t/spending-technology-equals-more-obesity-study-shows/

 Modern Technology Adds to Worldwide Obesity Woes

https://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/behavior-health-news-56/modern-technology-adds-to-worldwide-obesity-woes-report-667957.html

Rise of technology contributing to diabetes, obesity in developing world

http://globalnews.ca/news/1139459/rise-of-technology-contributing-to-diabetes-obesity-in-developing-world/