If one notices that almost everyone is getting bigger these days, it would be a correct observation. In fact, overweight people outnumber underweight people globally according to a Reuters article.
Right now, more than 640 million worldwide are obese according to a study that was published in the Lancet Medical Journal using data obtained by 700 researchers from World Health Organization. The study involved 20 million people from 186 countries.
How is obesity determined? Researchers use the body mass index to determine if one is normal, overweight or obese according to a Harvard article. It is actually a simple calculation based on the ratio of height and weight (BMI = kg/m2) and is a good indicator of the risk factor for certain diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
According to the same Harvard article, this is how researchers classify whether one is normal, overweight or obese:
Healthy - BMI between 18.5 and 24.9
Overweight - BMI between 25.0 and 29.9
Obese - BMI of 30 and higher
Going back to the study reported by Reuters, there is a startling increase of obesity in a span of 40 years, specifically between 1975 and 2014. In 1975, only around 105 million people had a BMI of 30 or more. In 2014 however, the figure rose to 641 million globally. This means that one in ten men is already obese. The ratio for obese women is even worse - one in seven is now obese according to the study.
These new findings alarmed health experts. Imperial College London professor at the school of public health Majid Ezzati comments that based on the new data, the severity of the obesity epidemic worldwide is just too extensive to be addressed by blood pressure and diabetes medication alone. Ezzati adds that putting up a few extra bike lanes would not be enough to solve the gargantuan problem either.
For Ezzati, a more effective approach would be to initiate a globally coordinated effort that should include addressing the pricing difference between healthy and unhealthy foods, most notably those ultra-processed food items readily found in grocery stores.
