The World Health Organization presented the results of its latest study on obesity. Nearly a billion inhabitants would now be affected. Among adults the figures doubled, among young people the statistics quadrupled.
One in eight people on Earth now live in a state of obesity, according to a latest study published by the World Health Organization in the journal “Lancet”, a few days before World Obesity Day (March 4).
The situation is alarming: the number of overweight people has exceeded one billion for the first time in history: 43% of adults in the world are now overweight.
If this figure has doubled since the 1990s for adults, it has quadrupled among young people aged 5 to 19.
Recently, the European Union published its own study showing that 1 in 6 Europeans are obese while 30% are overweight to varying degrees.
If things continue at the same pace, the numbers will double again by 2035.
The WHO emphasizes that “obesity is a complex chronic disease. The causes are well understood, as are the interventions needed to contain the crisis, which are supported by solid evidence. However, they are not implemented.”
At the same time, “the study also shows that although rates of undernutrition have declined, it remains a public health challenge in many regions, including Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Underweight and obesity in 2022 affected island nations in the Pacific and Caribbean as well as those in the Middle East and North Africa.
