Public Health
More than one billion people living with obesity
The total number of children, adolescents and adults worldwide living with obesity has surpassed one billion, according to a global analysis published in The Lancet. These trends, together with the declining prevalence of people who are underweight since 1990, make obesity the most common form of malnutrition in most countries.
More than one billion people in the world are now living with obesity, according to global analysis published in The Lancet. The new analysis of global data 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. Between 1990 and 2022, the proportion of the world’s children and adolescents who were affected by underweight fell by around one fifth in girls and more than one third in boys. The proportion of the world’s adults who were affected by underweight more than halved over the same period.
Obesity and underweight are both forms of malnutrition and are detrimental to people’s health in many ways. This latest study provides a highly detailed picture of global trends in both forms of malnutrition over the last 33 years. Senior author Professor Majid Ezzati,
of Imperial College London, said: “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. At the same time, hundreds of millions are still affected by undernutrition, particularly in some of the poorest parts of the world. To successfully tackle both forms of malnutrition it is vital we significantly improve the availability and affordability of healthy, nutritious foods.”
The new study was conducted by the NCD Risk
Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). 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. More than 1,500 researchers contributed to the study, which looked at body mass index (BMI) to understand how obesity and underweight have changed worldwide from 1990 to 2022. Adults were classed as being affected by obesity if they had a BMI greater than or equal to 30kg/m2
BMI was below 18.5kg/m2
and classed as underweight if their . Among school-
aged children (aged five to nine years) and adolescents (aged 10-19 years), the BMI used to define obesity and underweight depended on age and sex because there is significant increase in height and weight during childhood and adolescence.1 From 1990 to 2022, global obesity rates
more than quadrupled in girls (1.7% to 6.9%) and boys (2.1% to 9.3%), with increases seen in almost all countries. The proportion of girls who were underweight fell from 10.3% in 1990 to 8.2% in 2022, and for boys it fell from 16.7% to 10.8%. Among girls, a decrease in the rates of underweight was detected in 44 countries, while among boys, a decrease was noted in 80 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. Whereas 77 million girls and 108 million boys were underweight in 2022, decreasing from 81 million for girls and 138 million for boys in 1990. In adults, obesity rates more than doubled among women (8.8% to 18.5%) and nearly tripled in men (4.8% to 14.0%) between 1990 and 2022. The proportion of adults who were underweight halved between 1990 and 2022 (14.5% to 7.0% in
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www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I June 2024
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