60% of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050: study March 05, 2025

By AFP - Agence France Presse

60% of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050: study

The number of overweight or obese people worldwide has risen from 929 million in 1990 to 2.6 billion in 2021

More than half of the world's overweight or obese adults already live in just eight countries

PARIS: Around 60% of all adults and a third of all children in the world will be overweight or obese by 2050 unless governments take action, according to a major study on Tuesday.

The research published in the Lancet medical journal used data from 204 countries to paint a grim picture of what has been described as one of the great health challenges of the century.

“The unprecedented global epidemic of overweight and obesity is a profound tragedy and a monumental societal failure,” said lead author Emmanuela Gakidou, from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), in a statement.

The number of overweight or obese people worldwide has risen from 929 million in 1990 to 2.6 billion in 2021, according to the study.

Without serious change, the researchers estimate that 3.8 billion adults will be overweight or obese in 15 years - or around 60% of the global adult population by 2050.

The researchers warned that the world's health systems will come under devastating pressure, as around a quarter of the world's obese people are expected to be over 65 by that time.

They also predicted a 121% increase in obesity among children and adolescents worldwide.

A third of all obese young people will live in two regions - North Africa and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean - by 2050, the researchers warned.

But it's not too late to act, said study co-author Jessica Kerr of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia.

“Much stronger political commitment is needed to transform diets within sustainable global food systems,” she said.

This commitment is also needed for strategies “that improve people's nutrition, physical activity and living environments, whether it's too much-processed food or not enough parks,” Kerr said.

More than half of the world's overweight or obese adults now live in just eight countries - China, India, the United States, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, and Egypt, according to the study.

Although poor diet and sedentary lifestyles are the drivers of the obesity epidemic, “there are still questions” about the underlying causes, said Thorkild Sorensen, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who was not involved in the study.

For example, socially disadvantaged groups have a “consistent and unexplained tendency” towards obesity, he said in a commentary linked to The Lancet.

The research is based on figures from IHME's Global Burden of Disease study, which brings together thousands of researchers from around the world and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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