Worldwide, the rate of obesity/overweight has increased by 28% in adults and by 47% in children since 1980, but these rates vary considerably by country, according to a new analysis from the World Health Organization’s Global Burden of Disease Study.
The total number of overweight and obese people is now 2.1 billion, up from 857 million in 1980, said Marie Ng, Ph.D., of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Seattle, and associates (Lancet 2014 May 29 [doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60460-8]).
More than half of the world’s 671 million obese persons, however, live in just 10 countries. The United States has the most, with 13% of the world’s total, followed by (in descending order) China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan, and Indonesia, the investigators reported.
"Unlike other major global health risks, such as tobacco and childhood nutrition, obesity is not decreasing worldwide," senior author Emmanuela Gakidou, Ph.D., also of the institute, said in a statement.
The study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
