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A new study found that around 2 billion people struggle with excess weight, obesity, and other health problems caused by poor diets and lack of physical activity. This means that one-third of the world’s population is affected by weight issues.
In the U.S., there is the highest percentage of obese teens and kids (13%), while Egypt has the most obese adults (35%), among the 195 countries surveyed.
In 2015, 2.2 billion people lived with excess weight, of whom more than 700 million were diagnosed as obese. In addition, more and more people are killed by health issues caused by carrying excess weight such as heart disease or diabetes.
The findings were reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers also found that 4 million of the people who died because of a high BMI were not diagnosed as obese. This means that excess weight can lead to premature death even when the patient isn’t considered obese.
A Piece of Advice from Researchers
Lead researcher Dr. Christopher Murray who is heading the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation noted that people who ignore their weight problems do it at their own risk.
Murray advises people to turn their New Year’s resolutions to lose weight into year-round commitments to shed the extra pounds and prevent excess weight in the future.
For the study, researchers sifted through data on 68.5 million people. The data was provided by the Global Burden of Disease study which analyzes trends involving injuries, diseases, and conditions worldwide.
The study revealed that the number of people living with obesity has doubled over the last three decades in more than 70 countries. Women were the most likely to be affected by obesity.
The number of children affected by obesity was lower than adults, but obesity rates among children were higher, which means childhood obesity could become rampant in the near future if nothing is done to curb it.
