For every four adults in the world who are
malnourished five more are overweight, 30
percent of them clinically obese, according
to the
World
Health Organization.
The scourge of obesity, bringing in its train
a host of health and economic problems that
could one day cripple economies, is more prevalent
in some countries than others, but still constitutes
a global epidemic, says WHO.
A billion people out of the world's six
billion population are now considered overweight,
compared with 800 million who do not have
enough to eat.
Some 2,000 health experts gather in Boston,
Massachusetts on Friday for a four-day conference
on treatment and prevention of obesity, organized
by the North American Society for the Study
of Obesity (NAASO).
While accounting for less than five percent
of the population in China, Japan and some
African nations, the proportion of obesity
-- at the other extreme -- exceeds 75 percent
in some urban zones of Samoa, and 45 percent
among certain demographic groups in the United
States, notably among African Americans.
And even within China, more than 20 percent
of the people in certain cities are classified
as seriously overweight.
The international standard for determining
obesity is the body-mass index (BMI), defined
as one's weight in kilograms divided by the
square of one's height in meters.
A person who is 1.80 meters (5 feet 11 inches)
tall and weights 90 kilos (198 pounds) will
be considered as overweight because his BMI
-- 27.8 -- is above 25kg/m2, and would be
classified as obese if weighing 100 kilos
(220 pounds), yielding a BMI -- 30.8 -- above
30kg/m2.
In the United States, 30 percent of adults
are clinically obese, some 60 million people.
In Europe, Britain tops the list with 23 percent,
nearly twice the rate in Germany, where 12
percent tip the scales into obesity, according
to the OECD. Italy -- the land of pasta --
only counts eight percent of its population
as severely overweight.
But even in European countries where obesity
is less prevalent, the percentage has increased
steadily over time. In France, with a population
of just over 60 million, 5.9 million people
are obese today, whereas the figure for 10
years ago was only 3.6.
Overall, there are some 200 million adults
in the EU -- fully 45 percent of the population
-- who are measurably overweight.
Rates of excess weight and obesity have
climbed to alarming levels among children
too, experts say.
There are about 14 million overweight pre-teen
youngsters in the European
Union -- at least 3 million of them
obese -- with an additional 500,000 crossing
the line every year, according to recent study
by the International Task Force on Obesity.
In Portugal, more than 30 percent of 9-to-16
year olds are obese, three times more than
a decade ago, prompting health minister Antonio
Correia de Campos to warn recently that "50
percent of the Portuguese population will
be obese in 2050 if nothing is done."
In the United States, the proportion of
youth between the age of six and 19 classified
as overweight tripled between 1980 and 2002,
according to a federal study published earlier
this year by the Journal
of the American Medical Association.
Developing countries are not immune to the
problem, experts note. In Thailand, for example,
the percentage of five-to-twelve year olds
who are obese has climbed from 12.2 to 15.6
in only two years, according to WHO.
In general, obesity rates start to climb
towards epidemic levels in developing nations
as the sedentary lifestyles and rich diets
-- laden with sugar, fats and salt -- common
in many Western countries take hold, noted
experts and the 10th International Congress
on Obesity, held in Sydney in September.
The exploding rates of obesity contribute
heavily to increased rates of many chronic
diseases such as type-2 diabetes, hyper-tension,
arteriosclerosis, cerebral hemorrhaging, and
certain kinds of cancer.
Type-2 diabetes was once a disease that
only affected adults, most often advanced
in age, but today it has become common even
among obese pre-adolescent children, WHO said.
Ninety percent of those afflicted with type-2
diabetes are either overweight or obese.
