‘Big trouble’: 43% of adults worldwide now living with obesity, study finds

The world is facing a big problem. A recent study from The Lancet suggested that one in eight people qualify as obese. And in 2022, more than one billion people — approximately 43% of adults — were living with obesity, according to researchers from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration.

The number of adults who live with obesity has more than doubled since 1990. And among children between five and 19 years old, the obesity rate has quadrupled, according to a recent report by the World Health Organization. The data suggested that more than 390 million children within the age range were overweight in 2022, including 160 million who were living with obesity.

Researchers assessed data from 3,663 population-based studies with 222 million participants, using varying body mass index measurements for adults, teens, and children, according to Fox News Digital. The data in question was gathered between 1990 and 2022 across 200 countries around the world.

Out of the 200 countries, the U.S. ranked 36th in overall obesity.

“This new study highlights the importance of preventing and managing obesity from early life to adulthood, through diet, physical activity and adequate care, as needed,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“Getting back on track to meet the global targets for curbing obesity will take the work of governments and communities, supported by evidence-based policies from WHO and national public health agencies,” he continued.

“Importantly, it requires the cooperation of the private sector, which must be accountable for the health impacts of their products.”

The WHO reported the following:

In most cases obesity is a multifactorial disease due to obesogenic environments, psycho-social factors and genetic variants. In a subgroup of patients, single major etiological factors can be identified (medications, diseases, immobilization, iatrogenic procedures, monogenic disease/genetic syndrome).

The obesogenic environment exacerbating the likelihood of obesity in individuals, populations and in different settings is related to structural factors limiting the availability of healthy sustainable food at locally affordable prices, lack of safe and easy physical mobility into the daily life of all people, and absence of adequate legal and regulatory environment.

Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center said that the world is in “big trouble” regarding undernutrition and obesity.

“In terms of undernutrition, it is a public health challenge in many places, including Asia and Africa, though overall rates have dropped,” Siegel said.