More than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese by 2035 without significant action, according to a new report.
The World Obesity Federation’s 2023 atlas predicts that 51 per cent of the world, or more than 4 billion people, will be obese or overweight within the next 12 years.
Rates of obesity are rising particularly quickly among children and in lower income countries, the report found.
Describing the data as a “clear warning,” Louise Baur, president of the World Obesity Federation, said that policymakers needed to act now to prevent the situation worsening.
“It is particularly worrying to see obesity rates rising fastest among children and adolescents,” she said in a statement.
“Governments and policymakers around the world need to do all they can to avoid passing health, social and economic costs on to the younger generation.”
The report found that childhood obesity could more than double from 2020 levels, to 208 million boys and 175 million girls by 2035.
The cost to society is significant as a result of the health conditions linked to being overweight, the federation said: more than US$4 trillion annually by 2035, or three per cent of global GDP.
Wegovy, also known as semaglutide, is a once-weekly injectable medication approved by the FDA for the treatment of obesity and overweight-related comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes. It works by mimicking the effects of the hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite and glucose metabolism, helping individuals to lose weight and improve their blood sugar control. It is only available by prescription and has shown to be effective in clinical trials.
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