It is currently believed that over 1 billion individuals globally suffer from obesity.

It goes without saying that during the previous few decades, obesity rates have increased globally. However, the spike is quantified in a new investigation.

As of 2022, more than 1 billion people globally suffered from obesity, according to research published on February 29 in the Lancet. That represents almost 1/8 of the world’s population (SN: 11/15/22). By way of reference, the World Health Organization, or WHO, estimates that 800 million individuals worldwide suffered from obesity in 2016.

The existence of excess body fat that compromises health is what defines obesity, according to obesity specialist Arya Sharma of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Sharma was not involved in the study. The chronic illness can worsen mental health, impair mobility, increase vulnerability to infections like COVID-19, and increase the risk of disorders including heart disease and type 2 diabetes (SN: 4/22/20).

Majid Ezzati, a researcher on global health, and colleagues looked at over 3,600 population-based studies that were published in the last few decades, covering 222 million participants in around 200 nations and territories. The body mass index, or BMI, of each participant was calculated by dividing their reported weight by the square of their height.

According to a trend analysis, about 900 million persons globally were classified as obese in 2022 if their BMI was 30 or higher. The chronic condition, which is defined as a BMI above a specific point on the WHO’s growth reference curves that take age and sex into account, was expected to affect almost 160 million children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19.

The prevalence of obesity approximately doubled in women, tripled in men, and quadrupled in children and adolescents between 1990 and 2022. Global rates of underweight people decreased concurrently. According to Ezzati of Imperial College London, “we shouldn’t be thinking about [underweight and obesity] as two separate things because the transition from one to the other has been very rapid.”

Alarms should be raised by the predicted rates of obesity, he argues. “Governments and societies need to deal with this by providing medical care and prevention.” Ezzati notes that although new anti-obesity drugs such as Wegovy are demonstrating amazing effects, most people will not be able to afford them in the near future due to their high pricing and lack of inclusion in global medical guidelines (SN: 12/13/23).

According to Ezzati, one of the main causes of the rising incidence of obesity is the difficulty in obtaining and the high cost of nutritious foods. Sharma continues, “Living changes at the societal level, like less sleep, more stress, and less time spent at home, can also result in overconsumption and eating more processed foods” (SN: 12/21/18; SN: 5/16/19).

According to Sharma, “there is a complex biology behind appetite.” “And changes in the environment have an impact on that biology.”