Worldwide tsunami of obesity

The Straits Times
Feb 5, 2011 (Saturday)

Worldwide tsunami of obesity

Rates double since 1980; one in three overweight, one in nine obese
PARIS: A 'tsunami of obesity' is unfurling across the world, resulting in a near-doubling of the numbers of dangerously overweight adults since 1980, doctors warned yesterday.

More than half a billion men and women - nearly one in nine of all adults - are clinically obese, according to research by a team from Imperial College London, Harvard University and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In 2008, the latest year for which statistics were available, nearly one woman in seven and one man in 10 were obese, it found.

Being too fat causes three million premature deaths each year from heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other disorders, according to the WHO.

The researchers described the tableau as 'a population emergency'. '(It) will cost tens of millions of preventable deaths unless rapid and widespread actions are taken by governments and health-care systems worldwide,' said the report, published by medical journal The Lancet.

The problem has been most prevalent in rich nations, rising most in the United States, followed by New Zealand and Australia for women, and Britain and Australia for men.

But many developing countries, especially in the Middle East and in rapidly urbanising areas, are catching up.

'These results suggest that (being) overweight affects one in three adults and obesity affects one in nine adults - a tsunami of obesity that will eventually affect all regions of the world,' Dr Sonia Anand and Dr Salim Yusuf of Canada's McMaster University wrote in a commentary accompanying the study.

Global obesity rates more than doubled for men, from 4.8 per cent of male adults in 1980 to 9.8 per cent in 2008. For women, the corresponding jump was from 7.9 per cent to 13.8 per cent.

The standard for assessing weight is the body mass index (BMI), in which one's weight in kilos is divided by the square of one's height in metres.

A BMI of 25 to 30 corresponds to being overweight, while above 30 is obese.
Pacific Islanders weighed in with the highest BMI levels, between 34 and 35, and notched up among the sharpest increases over the last three decades as well.

In Europe, women in Russia and Moldova were at the upper end of the scale with BMIs of 27.2 and 27.1, while the heftiest men on the continent resided in the Czech Republic and Ireland.

At the other end of the spectrum, Swiss women were the most svelte, with their French and Italian counterparts vying for second place.

Italy holds the distinction of being the only country in Europe where women's average BMI declined, dropping from 25.2 to 24.8.

The study found western European countries - especially Iceland, Andorra and Germany - have among the highest cholesterol levels in the world, while African nations have the lowest.

On a positive note, high-income countries have seen a drop in cardiovascular diseases since 1980, despite high levels of obesity.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE