On the world day of obesity, the scientific community launches an appeal: urgent interventions are needed to contrast its diffusion, what has been done so far is not enough.
An entire generation deprived of the right to grow healthydue to a form of malnutrition that has changed its face in the last 30 years: Obesity will affect a child or teenager every 6, from here to 2050while a third of this slice of the population will find himself obese or overweight, from here to 25 years.
To give the alarm is a research by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (McRI) published on March 4, on the World Day of obesity, in the magazine Lancet. Which spurs to take urgent measures to counter the obesity epidemic, with interventions that must first concern everything Environment and possibility in which the boys are immersed.
Create the conditions to feel good. “Even if people and families can commit to balanced physical activity, diet and sleep, everything in our environments works to fight these efforts” says Susan Sawyer, who directs the Health Center of teenagers of the Royal Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, in Australia, and collaborates with the WHO for this same cause.
«Given this enormous global change in the weight of children and adolescents, We can no longer continue to blame people for their choices. We ask the governments to take a step forward by facing regulatory interventions, including the taxation of sugary drinks, the ban on junk food advertising aimed at children and young people and the financing of healthy meals in primary and secondary schools. We must also consider the benefits of wider policies such as the revision of urban planning to encourage active lifestyles ».
It is necessary to change the strategy. Based on analysis, from here to the mid -century, a third of children and adolescents (385 million in total) will be overweight or suffering from obesity (360 million in total). By dividing by age groups, it means that there will be 356 million children aged 5 to 14 and 390 million teenagers between 15 and 24 years with serious weight problems. From 1990 to 2021 the global rate of obesity was tripled in the age group from 5 to 24 years: proof that Current policies to counter obesity do not work. At 2021, 493 million children suffered overweight or obesity.
A mortgage on the future. Reasoning in perspective terms, it is understood why this situation is very worrying for global public health. Children and teenagers are a population at the same time vulnerable to diseases related to nutrition and delicate because it is predictive of the health of the future of humanity.
Obesity is hardly resolved after adolescence, therefore Prevention is the chave. A new generation of obese or overweight people will translate into future generations of adults struggling with diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, fertility and mental health problems, with astronomical costs for global health systems.
Identify those who need help. An initiative of immediate utility would be to establish national surveillance systems to analyze the prevalence of obesity and overweight in each country. The priority in the interventions would be assigned, according to the authors of the study, to the populations of obese or overweight girls between 15 and 24 years old, who enter the height of their fertile age: “Obese teenage girls are a main objective if we want Avoid the intergenerational transmission of obesitychronic conditions and terrible financial and social costs between future generations, “says Jessica Kerr, among the authors of the study.
Where it will hit more. The authors of the study used the Global Burden of Disease 2021, the study that provides the most complete picture on the reasons for mortality and disabilities in the world, to predict how obesity will spread in 204 countries and territories. The advance of this epidemic will be particularly quick In North Africa, Middle East, Latin America and Caribbean, Where the high number of inhabitants joins the problem of the limited quantity of resources. China, Egypt, India and the United States will instead host the largest number of obese children and adolescents in 2050.
