• The World Obesity Atlas 2023, published by World Obesity Federation, predicts that the global economic impact of overweight and obesity will reach $4.32 trillion annually by 2035 if prevention and treatment measures do not improve. At almost 3% of global GDP, this is comparable with the impact of COVID-19 in 2020.
• The majority of the global population (51%, or over 4 billion people) will be living with either overweight or obesity by 2035 if current trends prevail. 1 in 4 people (nearly 2 billion) will have obesity.
• Childhood obesity could more than double by 2035 (from 2020 levels). Rates are predicted to double among boys to 208 million (100% increase) and more than double among girls to 175 million (125% increase) and are rising more rapidly among children than adults.
• Lower income countries are facing rapid increases in obesity prevalence. Of the 10 countries with the greatest expected increases in obesity globally (for both adults and children), 9 of those are from low or lower-middle income countries. All are from either Asia or Africa.
Read more here: https://www.worldobesity.org/news/economic-impact-of-overweight-and-obesity-to-surpass-4-trillion-by-2035
This World Obesity Day (4/3/23) let's keep in mind our own Caribbean burden (rising) of obesity and it's sequelae as per this analysis - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2574254X.2020.1847632
The rates are exponentially rising (in schoolchildren), and complications related to the metabolic syndrome (cardiovascular disease etc) as well as certain cancers are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Read our discussion on this and the metabolic syndrome (a refresher) here: https://medlifeguide.wixsite.com/medlifeguide/post/raising-awareness
