Sugar sculptures near the Houses of Parliament in London were part of the campaign for a sugar tax... [+] in the United Kingdom to help address the obesity epidemic (Photo credit: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images) Sometimes it is harder to see things that move in slow motion. Perhaps if the global obesity epidemic moved any faster, it would garner an emergency response similar to Ebola, Zika and other infectious disease epidemics that have gripped the world in recent years. As two recent studies published in The Lancet and authored by the Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Risk Factor Collaboration have re-emphasized, the sheer magnitude of the global obesity epidemic dwarfs those of most other epidemics. The impact may be much greater as well, accounting for many more deaths (over 3.4 million a year) and more costs (over $2 trillion a year). My colleague Larry Cheskin, MD, associate director of our Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins University and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, describes the global obesity epidemic as "a catastrophe happening in slow motion." But One of the Lancet studies confirmed that obesity and overweight is a growing problem worldwide, even in countries that in the past have had problems with lack of food. The study analyzed the change in body mass index (BMI) from 1,698 studies among 19.2 million adults in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014. The researchers found that during this time period the average BMI increased from 21.7 to 24.2 kg/m2 among men and from 22.1 to 24.4 kg/m2 among women. Average BMIs among men were lowest (21.4 kg/m2) in central Africa and south Asia and highest in 29.2 kg/m2 in Polynesia and Micronesia. Among women, average BMIs were lowest (21.8 kg/m2) in south Asia to and also highest (32.2 kg/m2) in Polynesia and Micronesia. During the same time period, obesity prevalence more than tripled from 3.2% to 10.8% among men and more than doubled (6.4% to 14.9%) among women. By comparison, the prevalence of people are underweight, presumably from lack of enough food, decreased from 13.8% to 8.8% among men and 14.6% to 9.7% among women. The other Lancet study showed a substantial worldwide increase in a major consequence of obesity, diabetes, since 1980 by analyzing 751 studies that included nearly 4.4 million people. As the study's senior author Professor Majid Ezzati from Imperial College explained,“obesity is the most important risk factor for type 2 diabetes and our attempts to control rising rates of obesity have so far not proved successful. Identifying people who are at high risk of diabetes should be a particular priority since the onset can be prevented or delayed through lifestyle changes, diet or medication.” The study found that between 1980 and 2014, diabetes prevalence more than doubled from 4.3% to 9.0% among men and climbed by over 50% from 5.0% to 7.9% among women. This corresponded to the number of adults with diabetes worldwide nearly quadrupling from 108 million to 422 million. In 2014, northwestern Europe had the lowest diabetes rates. Polynesia and Micronesia had the highest (affecting nearly a quarter of adults), followed by Melanesia and the Middle East and north Africa. While not all diabetes cases are related to obesity, obesity is a major risk factor for the more common type of diabetes, Type 2 or adult-onset diabetes. And diabetes can have devastating health consequences such as heart problems, kidney disease and stroke. (Of course, obesity can result in many other health problems besides diabetes, such as cancer and heart disease.) World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan recently said that excessive weight, aging... [+] and population growth have recently driven a huge increase in worldwide cases of diabetes and called for stepped-up measures to reduce risk factors as well as improve treatment and care. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, FILE) While attention to the obesity epidemic has grown in recent years, has there been enough concern, energy, action and urgency to match the true magnitude and severity of this epidemic? Over the past several decades many of the obesity measures have focused on the individual person, such as diets and exercise programs. True, some larger efforts here and there around the world have emerged to prevent and control obesity. For example, the World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF) NOURISHING framework catalogs efforts aimed at improving diets to reduce obesity, such as sugar-sweetened beverage taxes in Mexico and Berkeley, California. Other initiatives have tried to increase physical activity, such as the United States First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Campaign and the Aspen Institute's Project Play. However, the two recent Lancet studies suggest that . Obesity and diabetes have continued to grow despite many the emergence of many diets and exercise... [+] programs over the past decade. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg One of the myths/misconceptions that may be inhibiting a more vigorous response to the epidemic is the belief that obesity is simply the result of individual laziness or poor choices. For instance, "fat-shaming," blaming the individual for being overweight, has itself become an epidemic in some places. The two Lancet studies provide further evidence that obesity is resulting from forces beyond the individual. It is highly unlikely that laziness and poor choices can explain such large increases in obesity and diabetes in so many different countries, including low- and middle-income countries that do not have the luxuries and access to food that high-income countries do. Such broader trends imply that other wider societal forces are at play such as fundamental changes in food, environmental, cultural, economic and social systems. Therefore, more global and systems approaches to the obesity epidemic are necessary. Epidemics that evolve more slowly do not necessarily afford more time to react. In fact, epidemics that grow slowly may be much harder to tackle and reverse...and may have a much greater and longer-lasting impact.
Two recent studies reveal that the magnitude of the global obesity epidemic surpasses most other epidemics; it is a “catastrophe happening in slow motion,” warns Type II at Johns Hopkins University. However, unlike Zika and Ebola, it garners less of an emergency response. Obesity is to account for as many as 3-4m deaths a year with associated costs of over $2tn, say reports, even impacting countries that have previously struggled with a lack of food. There has also been a significant increase in cases of diabetes worldwide, indicating that attempts to control rising rates of obesity have so far been unsuccessful and that the rate of concern and urgency does not match the severity of the epidemic. While not all diabetes cases are related to obesity, it is a major risk factor for the most common type of diabetes, Larry Cheskin.