A third of children and adolescents are also predicted to be overweight within the next 25 years as the global obesity epidemic continues to eat its way into societies.
That equates to 3.8bn adults and 746m children & adolescents globally, analysis from the Global Burden of Diseases Study BMI Collaborators, published in The Lancet on World Obesity Day, shows.
“Massive” global failures to counter the obesity epidemic globally are at fault, the study argues. There were 731m overweight and obese adults worldwide in 1990, rising to 2.11bn in 2021.
Almost half of the global adult population (1bn males and 1.11bn females aged 25 or older) were estimated to be overweight or obese in 2021. The prevalence of obesity more than doubled worldwide between 1990 and 2021 in both adult men (from 5.8% to 14.8%) and women (10.2% to 20.8%).
Some 198m children were overweight or obese in 1990, compared to 493m in 2021.
How many people will be obese by 2050?
There will be a 121% rise in the number of young people globally defined as obese, with the total number of children and adolescents with obesity predicted to reach 360m by 2050.
“The unprecedented global epidemic of overweight and obesity is a profound tragedy and a monumental societal failure,” said lead author Professor Emmanuela Gakidou from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, USA.
Countries with already high levels of obesity are Oceania and North Africa & the Middle East, with over 62% of adult males in Nauru, Cook Islands, and American Samoa, and over 71% of adult females in Tonga and Nauru living with obesity in 2021.
Among high-income countries, the USA had the highest rates of obesity, with around 42% of males and 46% of females affected by obesity in 2021.
The largest number of adults predicted to be overweight and obese by 2025 are expected to be in China (627m), India (450m) and the USA (214m) in 2050, the number in sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to rise by over 250% to 522m. The overall rise will be driven by population increase.
In Europe, nearly 51% of the population aged 16 and over are overweight, 17% of which are defined as obese, according to Eurostat.
“Obesity rates are skyrocketing across sub-Saharan Africa, with 522m adults and more than 200m young people expected to be overweight or obese by 2050,” said co-author Awoke Temesgen, clinical Associate Professor at IHME.
“This has added a double burden to the already overstretched healthcare systems that are ill-equipped to handle the extraordinary rise in obesity-related disease.”
How to stop the global obesity rate rising
Action was urgently needed to bring in preventative initiatives, like policies on the marketing of unhealthy foods, as well as increasing outdoor activity areas for school children, said Tamesgen.
Younger generations of consumers are gaining weight faster than those gone before them, with obesity occurring earlier, with heightened risks of health complications like diabetes, heart diseases and cancers at earlier ages, the report says.
Five-year action must be urgently implemented to help reduce obesity rates and inform new goals and targets for the post-2030 Sustainable Development Goal-era. The authors call for more concerted efforts to deliver comprehensive, transdisciplinary interventions tailored to each county’s unique socio-demographic, economic, environmental, and commercial situation.
“Preventing obesity must be at the forefront of policies in low- and middle-income countries,” said co-lead author Dr Jessica Kerr from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia.
“Policy action in these regions must balance the challenges of overnutrition with undernutrition and stunting, with interventions ranging from support for nutritional diets and regulating ultra-processed foods to promoting maternal and child health programmes that encourage pregnant women to follow a healthy diet and breastfeed.”
A business as usual approach was not good enough, added Kerr, saying “this is not the time for it”, pointing out many countries only have a short window of opportunity to stop much greater numbers shifting from overweight to obesity.”
