More than 2 billion people worldwide are revealed obese or overweight according to a new study. The obesity rate is reported to equate to one-third of the population of the world, which is fueled by poor diet, urbanization and the decrease in physical activity engagement.
Among the 195 countries included in the study, the United States led the chart with 13 percentage of obesity rate among children and young adults while Egypt has the greatest adult obesity rate of 35 percent.
The study published on Monday, in the New England Journal of Medicine said that an increasing number of people globally are dying due to health illness associated with obesity like cardiovascular disease.
Dr.
Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington said that people who gain weight put themselves at the risk of acquiring illnesses like Cardiovascular Disease, cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening illness. He also added that people should commit to losing weight every day.
Global obesity percentage
The group of researchers reportedly analyzed data from the 68.5 million people between 1980 and 2015 to find out the trends as well as the number of cases regarding obesity and overweight rates in children and adults. They used the Global Burden of Disease study data and methods to get a number of burden diseases associated with high BMI based on a person’s gender and age.
The results revealed that there were 107.7 million children and 603.7 million adults who were obese in 2015. Since 1980, the rate of obesity has doubled in over 70 countries. Moreover, women recorded more obesity levels compared to men in all age groups.
Children obesity rates were lower compared to adults but according to Goodarz Danaei, assistant professor of global health at Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health, the number is still signifying higher risk in the future. He added that people already knew about the obesity epidemic but with the newly-released study, it will create more awareness about obesity and diseases associated with it in the future across low and high-income countries.
Reduce the disease burden of high BMI
The study provided an assessment of trend between BMI and the associated Disease Burden. They also noted how the occurrence and high BMI among people increased globally. Thus, the researchers suggested “the need for implementation of multicomponent interventions” in order to at least reduce the prevalence and disease burden caused by high BMI.
