Sharp Increase in Child Obesity

New WHO Study Finds Sharp Increase in Child Obesity A new study provides evidence of a sharp increase in the number of obese and overweight children and young adults worldwide in just 40 years. The study was a project of researchers at Imperial College London and the World Health Organization (WHO). The findings were released this week at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The researchers studied obesity rates among children and young people, between five and 19 years of age. They found that rates in this group increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016. This was one of the biggest epidemiological studies ever done. The researchers examined height and weight data for about 130 million people. They used this information to get the Body Mass Index measurements of the subjects. The most striking changes have taken place in Middle Income Countries in areas such as East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. The WHO defines Middle Income Countries as places where a person normally earns between $1,045 and $12,736 every year. Majid Ezzati, a professor at Imperial College London, was the chief writer of a report on the study. He was surprised by the speed of change.

Source: AFP