A 2022 update on the epidemiology of obesity and a call to action: as its twin COVID-19 pandemic appears to be receding, the obesity and dysmetabolism pandemic continues to rage on

Abstract

The WHO just released in May 2022 a report on the state of the obesity pandemic in Europe, stating that 60% of citizens in the area of Europe are either overweight or obese, and highlighting the implications of the obesity pandemic, especially as it interacts with the COVID pandemic to create a twin pandemic, to increase morbidity and mortality. Obesity is a complex disease which has reached pandemic dimensions. The worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled since 1975, mainly due to the adoption of a progressively more sedentary lifestyle and the consumption of less healthy diets. We first report herein updated prevalence rates of overweight and obesity by sex, age, and region first in Europe, per the WHO report, and then worldwide between 1980 and 2019, as we analyze and present herein the data provided by the Global Burden of Disease Study. The prevalence of obesity is higher in women than in men of any age and the prevalence of both overweight and obesity increases with age and has reached their highest point between the ages of 50 to 65 years showing a slight downward trend afterwards. The age-standardized prevalence of obesity has increased from 4.6% in 1980 to 14.0% in 2019. The American and European region have the highest obesity prevalence and the USA and Russia are the countries with the most obese residents. Given dire implications in terms of comorbidities and mortality, these updated epidemiological findings call for coordinated actions from local and regional governments, the scientific community and individual patients alike, as well as the food industry for the obesity pandemic to be controlled and alleviated. We can hopefully learn from the COVID-19 pandemic, where collaborative efforts worldwide, focused intense work at both the local and global level and well-coordinated leadership have demonstrated that humankind is capable of amazing accomplishments by leveraging science and public health, and that we can finally make strides in terms of understanding and combating the obesity pandemic and its dire comorbidities including diabetes, NAFLD, CVD and obesity associated malignancies.

Keywords: Adiposity; BMI; Health risk; Obesity; Overweight; Prevalence.

Fig. 1

Global prevalence of overweight in adults >20 years old by age group and sex (ca. 2019). [Data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, WA)] .

Fig. 2

Global prevalence of obesity in adults >20 years old by age group and sex (ca. 2019). [Data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, WA)] .

Fig. 3

Age-standardized global prevalence of obesity in men and women >20 years old by year (ca. 1980–2019). [Data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, WA)] .

Fig. 4

Age-standardized prevalence of obesity in adults >20 years old by geographical region and year (ca. 1980–2019). [Data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, WA)] .