A study published April 2 in the journal Lancet reported that there are more obese people in the world now than there were 40 years ago, and that the trend is growing at a frightening rate. The study, from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, compared obesity rates worldwide from the 1970s to 2014 using the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a measuring system. They found that the number of obese people rose from 105 million in 1975 to 641 million by 2014.
BMI estimates a person’s body mass through height and weight measurements. Although many experts say the BMI system is flawed, it is a common method of measuring body fat and muscular mass used by nutrition centers, gyms and physicians. Researchers analyzed the information of over 19 million people from 186 to 200 countries around the world. Results showed that men’s obesity increased from 3.2 percent to 10.8 percent between 1975 and 2014, while women increased from 6.4 percent to 14.9 percent over the same period.
There was a higher concentration of obese women found in central Latin America than anywhere else in the world. That area and South Asia were the most alarming, but the obesity epidemic has increased worldwide. Looking at the entire plant, 1.6 percent of women and 0.64 percent of men suffer from morbid obesity, in which their weight prohibits them from performing basic daily activities.
According to the report, “We now live in a world where more people are obese than underweight. The world as a whole is getting heavier and it’s getting heavier by about 1.5 kilograms [3.3 pounds] per decade on average for both men and women.”
Obesity is much more than an aesthetic problem. Scientists define it as a medical condition in which excess fat negatively affects a person’s health. Governments around the world are looking at ways to solve the problem, with a goal of nearly eradicating obesity by 2025. However, the authors of the paper say that the probability of meeting this goal are virtually zero, especially considering the increasing pace at which obesity is growing. The authors say that by 2025 18 percent of men and 21 percent of women will be obese if current trends continue.