Obesity Represents a Global Public Health Crisis

The global obesity epidemic severely impairs the health and quality of life of those suffering from it, and is a heavy burden on national healthcare budgets.

A new report by researchers at VU University (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) warns that the prevalence of obesity is increasing at an alarming rate in many parts of the world; in fact, since 1980 it has nearly doubled. Analysis of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME; Seattle, WA, USA) Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study found that more than two billion people in the world were overweight, and about 671 million of them were obese. The proportion of adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or greater increased between 1980 and 2013 from 29% to 37% in men and from 30% to 38% in women.
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In the GBD analysis, estimates were also made of the global prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents, finding that about 24% of boys and 23% of girls were either overweight or obese. The prevalence of overweight and obesity had also increased in children and adolescents in developing countries, from about 8% in 1980 to 13% in 2013 for both boys and girls. While the plight of the most affected populations, such as high-income countries in North America, Australasia, and Europe, has been well publicized, more recent increases in population obesity in low- and middle-income countries are now being observed.

The researchers stress that the increase in obesity worldwide is an important contributor to the global incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes mellitus, cancer, osteoarthritis (OA), work disability, and sleep apnea. This results in increasing nephropathy, arteriosclerosis, neuropathy, retinopathy, and other obesity-related morbidities. The researchers conclude that obesity can be described as a public health crisis that adds a heavy burden to national health-care budgets, and recommend inter-sectoral actions to reverse current trends. The report was published in the June 2015 issue of Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism.

“How many people become obese is usually a consequence of environmental factors; who becomes obese is usually more strongly related to biological (i.e., genetic) factors. This lack of one single causal factor also implies that single interventions are unlikely to have more than only a small overall impact on their own,” concluded study authors Prof. Jaap Seidell, PhD, and Jutka Halberstadt, MSc, of the VU department of health sciences. “A systemic, sustained portfolio of initiatives, delivered at scale, is needed to address obesity prevention. Interventions are needed that rely less on education and personal responsibility of individuals but more on changes to the environment and societal norms.”

The researcher recommend an integrated approach to community activities, such as the Ensemble Prévenons l'Obésité Des Enfants (EPODE) initiative, a large-scale, centrally coordinated, capacity-building approach for effective and sustainable strategies to prevent childhood obesity. Since 2004, EPODE has been implemented in over 500 communities in 6 countries. The methodology of EPODE involves a concise logic model with four critical components: political commitment, public and private partnerships, social marketing, and evaluation.

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Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation