Over past three decades. obesity rates increased fourfold among children and doubled among adults
More than 1 billion people worldwide are now living with obesity, with rates among children increasing fourfold across a 32-year period, according to new research.
Analysis of the weight and height measurements of over 220 million people from more than 190 countries shows how body mass index (BMI) changed across the world between 1990 and 2022.
Approximately 1,500 researchers contributed to the study by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). Published in the Lancet, it found that over the period obesity rates increased fourfold among children, and doubled among adults.
Before you start fat shaming, before we even get into things like food deserts in America which keep millions from eating healthily, note that one of the most obese populations in the world is in Palestine. Is it because they’re lazy or stupid? Is it because there’s an overabundance of food? No. It’s because they have had virtually no option to eat healthily due to Israel’s apartheid.
“42.0% of adult (aged 18 years and over) women and 29.5% of adult men are living with obesity.”
https://globalnutritionreport.org/resources/nutrition-profiles/asia/western-asia/state-palestine/
Obesity is a very complex problem.
The idea you cant be poor and obese at the same time holds hard, but clearly the nutrition at the bottom of the pile is worse than it used to be
For years now, people have been blaming an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, but that’s always seemed like convenient BS to me. People were not significantly more active 60 years ago compared to today. At least not to the extent that would explain the explosion in obesity rates. Most families still had cars and would still drive 5 minutes rather than walk 20.
It’s definitely something with the food. HFCS or other additives are the likely culprit. I feel like all the messages that it’s just because of poor diet and lack of exercise is propaganda from the food industries to deflect blame from themselves and put it on individuals. Like yea, eating healthy and working out will absolutely help keep weight off. But the point is, people didn’t seem to have to watch their food intake or work out as much in the past.
They feed us poison and blame us for the results.
Common industry trope - same with climate change EVs vs industrial processes. We keep asking 7.9 billion people to attack the 5% or less left of an issue that maybe they with full collective action could dent, while just pretending that nothing can be done by the IDK 100,000 people running the industrial processes responsible for like 70% of the problem.
I swear, it’s the latte / avocado toast financial advice. Yes, if I drop $100-$200 a month habit it’ll make up for the $4,000 a month unsustainable living expenses.
What. No. We drive far more, and have more cars. In 1960 nearly a quarter of households didn’t even have a car. Now that is only 10%.
Here is a study on occupational movement, which has decreased significantly (100 kcal a day - which is roughly a pound bodyweight energy lost per month).
In addition, people had far more incidental and leisure movement - considering that hours of TV watched nearly doubled.
Of course, our trash diet is a huge aspect, and probably the lions share - but the lack of movement is not insignificant
Partially right on the food but absolutely wrong on lifestyle changes over the last few decades. Specifically we are talking youth here, in western countries but evidence also supports places like China with more and more youth neglecting exercise and sports to stay inside and consume digital entertainment instead that only compounds with increasingly unhealthy dietary choices. Increasing sugar and carb intake while neglecting other nutrients and vitamins. Both factors are bad on their own but the effect is multiplicitive when combined. And a third factor with the subculture pushing obese acceptance and trying to present overweight people as being just as healthy as those pursuing atheltic and active lifestyles makes people who have fallen into the trap of sedentary lifestyle eating unhealthy foods regularly even less likely to try and change and improve themself, many people giving up cause its hard to break free of something they know and gives them comfort, even if its literally killing them slowly.
Its both. In developed countries kids are playing Fortnite, watching streamers on Twitch etc. and pinging their friends on social media vs. every decade up until the early 2000s, where kids essentially went outside all day anytime they weren’t in school. In the US, dozens of dietary factors are also to blame. Subsidized corn, poor nutrition education, ubiquity of fast food and fast casual restaurants, snack food marketing around social events like holidays and the Super Bowl, advent of food delivery apps, growth of the “body positivity” movement etc. are all reasons people have trended toward obesity.
Do you have any sources whatsoever or are you just making stuff up because you just dislike “they”.
Of course people didn’t have to watch their intake as much earlier. Food is unhealthier and more plentiful than ever.
Btw, why shouldn’t “they” blame you? It’s your own damn body. Of course the industry should be regulated more but that also applies to every industry.
Mom! Check it out! I’m in the news!
I’m clearly not in this article (about the increase in obesity rates since 1990s) because I’ve been obese since the 80s.
Ha. Your fat and old.
I mean, so am I. But you too.
If more countries treated obesity as the disease it is, we might learn the real causes, and maybe have some effective treatments. All the noninvasive treatments don’t work long term for the vast majority from what I have read.
On the less proven track, there are hypotheses that obesity may be driven by bacteria that colinize the gut and impact brain function to train a person to be addicted to certain foods. Still far from proven, but if the funding was there we might know one way or the other.
it’s still based on BMI so it’s still bullshit but a rising trend is still a rising trend
Yeah based on BMI, when I was eating healthy, active, AND young enough to easily shed weight I was still considered obese. Feels bad man.
I really think we need to define obesity better. BMI is not a be-all-end-all. Many professional athletes and weightlifters are obese despite being very lean. The fact is, better nutrition has helped many develop more. BMI was originally developed to normalize data across various heights, nothing more. It was never intended to be a judgement on overall health.
We should base it on body fat. Obviously different numbers for men and women. But it would make way more sense than just height and weight.
My brother in Christ, the people you talk about are probably not even 0.01% of the equation.
The average person who has an obese BMI is just that, obese.
For entire populations this stat works perfectly. A hulking bodybuilder knows he’s not obese, no matter what his BMI says.
I’m not sure where your from but in my team at work, half of us attend gym at least once a week and we all regularly discuss diet and exercise. It’s not 0.01% that care about themselves.
I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about the general population. And even the guys I go to the gym with don’t count as obese BMI wise, despite having plenty of muscle. You really need to be in the bulking strong man / bodybuilder category to get your BMI up that high and still be on the non-fat side of things.
Tell that to life insurance providers, who will charge them far more.
And that’s just an extreme example. There are plenty of people out there that measure “obese” by BMI, but you would question if they are overweight.
I think we’re so used to seeing fat people that our perception of who really counts as obese is skewed.
This. I’m euro heritage with a BMI ~29. When I stand amongst my family I look average, when I stand with my Chinese mates I look overweight, when I’m with my pacific islander friends I look slim. The idea that all overweight/obese (by BMI) people are unhealthy is absurd.
It’s corn. It made Mexicans fat, so then they made Americans fat and now it’s your turn! LOL, once you had one you can’t stop! Keep it light…3 tortillas per meal, no more. A handful of chips per meal, no more. Cut fast and carbs. Drink probiotics and fiber containing drinks. Drink lots of water.
Corn was the staple crop of indigenous Americans for thousands of years. They cultivated it into the plant is is today. High-fructose corn syrup is the problem. That involves processing in a way it never was historically.
So “made Mexicans fat” is just some racist bullshit. Especially since Mexico has less of an obesity problem than the U.S.
Bueno mi chico, when high fructose corn syrup entro en el mercado en Mexico su hubo muchisimo cambio entre nosotros. Yo me acuerdo en michoacan donde naci que muchos de mis amigos y amigas eran normal. Poco despues en los ochenta, casi entrando a los noventas los ninos y ninias de las escuelas primaries se veian mas gorditos. La coca-cola y todas las sodas y vevidas de dulce y maiz fue la causa. Ahora mucho muy pocos ninios son normales. En casi cualquier lado de Mexico vas a encontrar que la mayoria de la Gente es obesa y Todo coincide con el cambio de la quimica del azucar con fructosa de maiz.
Sorry, I’m not going to have a discussion with you via Google Translate. The facts remain- Corn was a staple crop for thousands of years and did not cause obesity and Mexico has a lower obesity problem than the United States.
Okay bet if you want to know lo que un Mexicano pienza de la comida Mexicana pues tienes que hablar en espaniol. You may have a point about corn not being the main cause. Another big cause for obesity in Mexico is red meat and all the lard associated with it.
And look at how diabetes is sort of reported on…like no, the food is not the issue. https://insujet.com/blogs/es/maiz-y-la-diabetes
But yeah, the food is the issue.
I see this as a victory
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Its so easy that theres a billion obese people in the world!
It’s often easier to become obese though. Which is why there’s like 7 billion people who are not obese
I mean, you can’t really count the billions that have trouble getting enough to eat, either.
There is like 2.3 billion who are food insecure, with 828 million of them going hungry.
Ironically and unfortunately, there may even be some overlap between the obese and those who are food insecure.
There’s hunger and nutrition. I believe that there are many foods that will satiate hunger without providing adequate nutrition.
Not to dismiss the struggles of those who literally don’t have enough food, though. I would rather be missing some nutrients than have nothing at all.
You’re right. The equation to lose weight is not hard. Eat less, move more. That’s simple, but it’s not fucking easy.
Exactly it’s simple like quitting smoking is just don’t smoke anymore. For some people that’s enough but with obesity rates this high and having the relationships they do with plenty of other sociological phenomena we need to stop acting like it’s a moral failure and instead look to find ways that it may have been made harder and ways to make it easier.
100%. Ban fast food advertising and make all junk food have plain packaging warning labels.
Why’d you have weight to lose in the first place if it’s not that hard to lose or keep off? What’s “tons” mean? 100 pounds or more?
I don’t think it’s very nice to mock someone for gaining weight because you disagree with them saying it’s easy to lose weight.
I gained a lot of weight because I was depressed and suicidal. Cooking is one thing I enjoy, and eating is something I enjoy even more. Because of my mental health difficulties I was stuffing my face, and I gained what I consider to be an unacceptable amount of weight.
I was able to lose all of that rather quickly by just not eating carbohydrates and sugars. There are many names for this, keto, Atkins, low-carb.
It was not my intention to mock, just to push back on what I see as ignorance. “I did it, so everybody can do it” is a pretty ignorant attitude in my eyes. It also comes off as: being fat is a choice for everybody. And that always comes with: it’s ok to bully people into weight loss.
I’m sorry you felt uncomfortable with your body at a time when you were already having mental health difficulties and giving yourself comfort in trying times. That sounds rough.
You are right in the sense that it is easy to lose weight by altering your diet. But not everyone has the opportunity to change their diet. Perhaps it is because they cannot afford to eat a higher quality of food.
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Easy in what way? It’s not easy if your body craves food as a substitute for happiness, or sleep, or calm thoughts. Stress is a major factor in weight gain and it’s a primal instinct, so it’s hard to fight. Especially because if you’re overwhelmed by lack of sleep, worry over finances, and have no time, it’s hard to shop for and prepare healthful food all the time. And there may not be time for physical exercise either. “It’s easy” is a hurtful thing to say when another choice would be, “let me take on some of your burden so you can take care of your health.”
That’s why the vast majority of people who lose weight either fail or end up regaining the weight in less then a couple years.
Seriously, you have a better chance of quitting heroin than losing significant weight and keeping it off.
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