Shocking: 1 Out Of Every 10 People In The World Are Obese!

Recent research has revealed that 1 out of every 10 people in the world are obese. This number is shockingly high. Approximately 2.2 billion around the world are believed to be overweight. Resulting in a global health crisis, due to which there is a drastic increase in the number of premature deaths. This is because obesity can increase risk of heart diseases, diabetes, joint pains, high blood pressure and some types of cancers such as colon, breast and uterine cancers. Obese people are also more prone to diseases and problems such as stroke, gall bladder disease, breathing problem, lower back pain, swelling of the feet and ankles, imbalances and accidents. Obese people have a low self-esteem and they avoid company, which makes them insular and insecure.

The study was conducted in 195 different countries over a 35-year long period. The research was presented at a conference in Stockholm on Monday and is billed as the most comprehensive study carried out to date on the subject of obesity. It revealed that obesity numbers have doubled in 73 countries and surged elsewhere around the world since the launch in 1980 of the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

At the end of the study in 2015, it was found that 107.7 million children and 603.7 million adults were deemed obese. Even though the child obesity rates were relatively lower, the number is constantly growing at a fast pace which is "worrisome" according to the researchers.

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"Excess body weight is one of the most challenging public health problems of our time, affecting nearly one in every three people," said Dr. Ashkan Afshin, the paper's lead author and an assistant professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle. The World Health Organization had estimated the number of overweight people at 1.9 billion in 2014, including more than 600 million who were obese..

Four million deaths in 2015 were linked to having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 24.5, indicating a person is overweight, or of 30 or more, indicating obesity. BMI is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their height in centimeters squared. Of those deaths, more than 40 per cent involved people deemed non-obese - indicating that being overweight, even without being obese, is leading to millions of premature deaths. More than two-thirds of deaths linked to a raised BMI were attributed to cardiovascular diseases, marking a sharp increase since 1990.

Of the world's most populous countries, the rate of obesity among children and young adults was highest in the United States, at 13 percent, while Egypt had the highest rate of obesity among adults, at 35 percent of the population.

The lowest rates of adult obesity were in Bangladesh and Vietnam, both at one percent. China and India had the highest number of obese children - respectively 15.3 and 14.4 million. The United States and China, meanwhile, had the greatest number of obese adults - respectively 79.4 and 57.3 million.

The most worrisome finding was the approximate tripling of obesity in youth and young adults of middle-income countries - namely China, Brazil, and Indonesia. "An early onset of obesity is likely to translate into a high cumulative incidence of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease," according to Dr. Edward Gregg and Dr. Jonathan Shaw, both epidemiologists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study was based on the latest data provided by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, which tracks the impact of more than 300 types of pathology and injury in 133 countries.

Its chief goal was to understand, on a global scale, what is driving "the current global epidemic of disease" related to high body weight, the authors said. The research was unveiled on Monday at the annual EAT Stockholm Food Forum, which brings together scientists, business leaders and policy makers to address ways to transform the global food system to help solve the challenges of climate, sustainable development and health.

(With inputs from AFP)

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