Obesity rates double worldwide

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDFeb 7 2011

The latest research has shown that obesity is on the rise worldwide and has actually doubled since 1980. On the other hand people in the developed countries have also managed to reduce their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. This comes from three new studies published online Feb. 3 in The Lancet.

The studies conclude that while medications may be helping those in Western countries fend off some of the physical effects of weighing too much, obesity still remains a huge problem, particularly outside Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008, almost 10 percent of men and 14 percent of women in the world were estimated to be obese. That is up from 5 percent and 8 percent, respectively, in 1980.

People with a body mass index over 30 are considered obese and the average body mass index is at 34 to 35 in some island nations in the Pacific. The United States reached the highest level among wealthy countries with an average BMI of 28, putting its residents in the overweight range. New Zealand and Australia also had notably overweight people on average, while women in Turkey and men in the Czech Republic had the highest average BMIs in Europe.

On the other hand blood pressure levels were found to be lowest in South Korea, Cambodia, Australia, Canada and the United States, and highest in Portugal, Finland and Norway. Countries in Africa and the Baltic region also had high average blood pressure levels. Cholesterol levels were highest in some Western European countries (such as Greenland, Iceland and Germany) and lowest in Africa. Among wealthier Western countries, cholesterol rates were lowest in the United States, Canada, Greece and Sweden.

Majid Ezzati, senior author of the obesity study and a professor at Imperial College London said, “It’s heartening that many countries have successfully reduced blood pressure and cholesterol despite rising BMI…Improved screening and treatment probably helped to lower these risk factors in high-income countries, as did using less salt and healthier, unsaturated fats.” Dr. Lawrence J. Cheskin, director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health added that the end result of rise in obesity should be higher levels of diabetes, although medications and other medical treatments may dampen the increase. Cheskin said, “Don’t assume there’s little we can do as individuals and nations. We are not getting heavier because our genes are changing…Let’s work on changing our food supply and environment, reducing poverty, enhancing education about health promotion, and keeping moving.” “We are increasingly dependent upon automobiles rather than public transit, walking, et cetera.,” said Dr. Peter Muennig, assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York. “There is also a trend toward eating high-calorie processed foods, movements towards automating many manual labor jobs and working more hours at sedentary jobs.”

World Health Organization’s Gretchen Stevens, who is also a co-author, said, “We need to identify, implement, and rigorously evaluate policy interventions aimed at reversing the trends, or limiting their harmful effects.” The World Health Organization provided some of the funding for the study.