Fighting the Fat!
Are you dieting this year? Weigh to go!
Throughout January, millions of people will be making New Year’s Resolutions to start something new or cut back on their favourite indulgences
Only 46% of people who made a resolution report that they successfully achieve it, although this is still a lot of people making a change in their lives (if only temporarily)
Our final instalment on New Year’s Resolutions is about obesity and losing weight
How many people in the world are overweight?
Obesity is a growing problem around the world, with roughly 2 billion people being classed as obese (30% of the world’s population). This is a number that’s tripled since 1975
Oceania is particularly challenged by obesity, with countries is the Pacific typically the ones that have the highest rates, such as:
- American Samoa (75% based on 2020 data)
- Nauru (71%)
- Cook Islands (63%)
This is believed to be impacted because of the prominence of western foods that have become commonplace in the region
Outside of Oceania, Kuwait has the highest obesity rate (38%, based on 2016 data) followed by the United States (36%)
In both cases, high rates of obesity are due to the amount of fast food consumed. For example, the US spends $200 billion annually on fast food, or $1200 per person. Approximately 50 million Americans visit a fast food outlet every day and 1-in-3 children eat fast food daily
The UK has much lower rates of obesity (27% in 2015), but still has some problems. Obesity rates have increased substantially from 15% in 1993 and a much greater proportion of the population fall into the category of overweight (63% in 2015)
Most countries with the lowest rates of obesity are in South Asia, with only 4% of adults in Bangladesh, Timor Leste, Cambodia, India and Nepal being obese. The Japanese are also particularly thin with an obesity rate of 4%
What are the costs of obesity?
According to estimates by the WHO, 2.8 million people die as a result of being overweight or obese each year. To put this in context 6.8 million have died of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic nearly three years ago
The personal costs are also significant with obesity resulting in a person’s life being 9 years shorter. On top of this, obese people:
- have higher risk of cancer (3x more likely to develop colon cancer)
- are 2.5+ times more likely to develop high blood pressure
- 5x more likely to develop type 2 diabetes
Then there are financial costs to being overweight. In the United States, its estimated that obesity costs $260 billion in health costs (or more than 1% of America’s entire economy)
In the UK, the NHS spent £6.1 billion on overweight or obesity-related ill-health in 2014–15 and its estimated the cost of obesity to the wider economy is £27 billion (the UK spends more on treating obesity and diabetes than their entire national budget for police, fire and the judicial system combined)
How hard is it to lose weight?
There are plenty of people who try to lose weight, but its not easy to do
Taking one of the most overweight countries as an example, an estimated 44 million Americans go on diets each year, while 38% of people in the US have attempted to lose weight 3 or more times in their lives
Almost 80% of American women had attempted at least one diet, although the equivalent number of men who have tried dieting is only 55%
However, a 2021 survey showed that plenty of people managed to achieve this during the pandemic. It showed that 32% of all respondents globally lost weight since March 2020, with the UK having the highest rate (40%) while the United States was only at 28%
And how did they do it?
Well, one survey of US adults showed that the most common ways of trying to lost weight were eating less and exercising more (both 63%). The next most common were eating more fruit and vegetables (50%) and drinking more water (45%)
Check out more GoodStats about Christmas and New Year:
- Sobering up for the New Year; Do you fancy a tipple?
- Chocolate, can you give it up? Have a break, have a KitKat
- The Gift of Giving; I hope you enjoy this 4 minute-long present
- Let it Snow! Are you dreaming of a White Christmas?
