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The Global Problem of
Obesity
More Than Half of Those in
Worldwide Study Overweight or Obese
By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Louise
Chang, MD
--
The obesity epidemic is actually a worldwide pandemic that has
global implications for health and disease, new research
shows.
In one of the largest studies ever to examine obesity rates
across the globe, researchers found that more than 60% of men
and 50% of women were either overweight or obese.
They concluded that obesity is a growing problem in all
regions of the world, even among traditionally lean Asian
populations.
"The study shows that excess body weight is pandemic, with
one-half to two-thirds of the overall study population being
overweight or obese," researcher Beverley Balkau, PhD, of the
French health service INSERM, says in a news release.
Obesity Worldwide
The study involved 69,409 men and 98,750 women from 63
countries across five continents evaluated by their primary
care doctors for body weight, height, cardiovascular disease
(heart disease or stroke), diabetes, and waist circumference.
The U.S. was not included in the study.
Waist circumference is now considered an important marker of
obesity-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. A
waist circumference of more than 40 inches in men and 35
inches in women is considered a risk factor for these
diseases.
The people in the study had visited their doctor on one of two
specially designated days in which detailed information on
weight, height, waist circumference, and disease history were
collected for the trial, providing a snapshot of the
prevalence of obesity worldwide.
Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from the weight and
height measurements. BMI looks at a person's weight in
relation to height and is used to determine obesity and
overweight. Forty percent of men and 30% of women met the
criteria for being overweight, meaning they had a BMI of 25 to
29.9.
Fully a quarter of men and women met the BMI definition of
obese (BMI of 30 or greater), but obesity rates did differ by
region, ranging from a low of 7% among men and women living in
southern and eastern Asian countries to a high of 36% among
men and women living in Canada.
Just under one in three men and almost half of the women had
waist circumferences of more than 40 and 35, respectively,
putting them at higher risk for heart disease and diabetes.
The rate of diagnosed heart disease among male and female
study participants was 16% and 13%, respectively. A total of
13% of men and 11% of women had known diabetes.
The men and women in the study with the largest waists were
more than twice as likely as those with the smallest waists to
have heart disease.
Diabetes risk was three times higher for the quarter of men
with the biggest waists and almost six times higher for women,
compared with the quarter of the study population with the
smallest waists.
The study is published in the
latest issue of the American Heart Association (AHA) journal
Circulation.
Reversing the Obesity Trend
While people living in southern and eastern Asia fared better
than other populations in terms of obesity and waist
circumference, the researchers point out that this is not
necessarily reassuring because their rates of obesity are also
rising.
American Heart Association spokesman Gerald Fletcher, MD, of
the Jacksonville branch of the Mayo Clinic, tells WebMD that
the study provides important confirmation of the global reach
of obesity.
"We have known that obesity is a worldwide problem, but this
is the largest study yet to actually show this," he says.
Balkau and colleagues conclude that unless the trend is
reversed, the rise in obesity will result in major increases
in sickness and death from related diseases like diabetes.
Fletcher agrees, adding that major public health initiatives
are needed to address the problem.
"We have seen that such initiatives can work to reduce
cigarette smoking," he says. “We have to have the same kind of
commitment to make a difference in obesity rates."
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