Global obesity
Scientists: over 90% of American men are overweight
Approximately 90% of adult men and 50% of children in The United States and other developed countries of the world suffer from overweight, mild or severe forms of obesity and related problems, according to an article published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health (Overfat Adults and Children in Developed Countries: The Public Health Importance of Identifying Excess Body Fat).
"The global obesity epidemic has become a serious challenge for the healthcare system, which imposes an additional burden on the economies of developed countries of the world. We found that the number of overweight people in the 30 most developed countries of the world is noticeably higher than recently published global estimates, which is especially true for people with excess belly fat," write Paul Laursen from Auckland University of Technology (New Zealand) and his colleagues (in a press release Study finds 90 percentage of American men overfat – VM).
According to WHO data, about a third of the world's population today suffers from obesity, and in some countries, such as Great Britain and the Middle East countries, more than half of the population is overweight. According to current forecasts, the number of people on Earth with extra pounds will reach 2.7 billion by 2025, with the proportion of people with extreme forms of obesity at that time reaching 17%, and the number of overweight people – about 46%.
The number of overweight people is growing fastest in developing countries that have recently gained access to cheap and high-calorie food and do not yet have laws restricting its turnover. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China, about 10% of men and 14% of women living in China today suffer from obesity, and among children this figure is approaching 15%. This trend is especially strong in large megacities in the east of China.
According to recent calculations of scientists, approximately 40-70% of the world's population today suffers from excess weight in all its manifestations – starting with a few hundred extra grams and ending with severe forms of obesity, with the development of which a person cannot move. Laursen and his colleagues decided to check how these trends are characteristic of the United States and the 35 most economically developed countries in the world.
As these measurements showed, the number of people suffering from excess weight turned out to be noticeably higher than the global average norms and expectations of scientists themselves. In the USA, Iceland, New Zealand and Greece, the situation was the most serious – here over 90% of men, 71-81% of women, as well as over 50% of boys and girls of school and preschool age suffer from mild forms of obesity.
In all other countries, a similar, albeit less serious situation was observed – in most other states, the proportion of overweight adult men and women ranged from 78% to 88% and from 52% to 72%, and the proportion of overweight children differed slightly from the indicators of the "top four".
Drawings from an article in Frontiers – VM.
The only two exceptions in this regard are two Asian countries – Japan and Brunei, where the proportion of both men and women with excess weight does not exceed 50%. In the same countries, there is a record low prevalence of obesity among children, which suggests that their national dietary traditions and government policies help them avoid the development of an obesity epidemic that has swept the rest of the world.
Why do even mild forms of obesity bother scientists? As Laursen explains, the appearance of even small amounts of fat increases the likelihood of developing diabetes, metabolic disorders and other health problems, the fight against which requires a large amount of resources, and the presence of which leads to a reduction in human life expectancy.
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25.07.2017