For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people in the world rivals the number of underweight people, a new report claims.
The Earth is now home to an estimated 1.2 billion overweight people, equivalent to the world's population of underfed people, according to the US-based Worldwatch Institute. And while the ranks of the hungry are thinning slightly, the "fatties" of the world are expanding rapidly, it says. But both groups suffer from malnutrition, getting the wrong amount of nutrients and other dietary elements needed for healthy living.
"The hungry and the overweight share high levels of sickness and disability, shortened life expectancies, and lower levels of productivity - each of which is a drag on a country's development," says Mr Gary Gardner, co-author of Underfed and Overfed: The Global Epidemic of Malnutrition. The public health impact is enormous: more than half the world's disease burden - measured in "years of healthy life lost" - is attributed to hunger, overeating and widespread vitamin and mineral deficiencies. "The century with the greatest potential to eliminate malnutrition instead saw it boosted to record levels," says Mr Gardner.
In the US, 55 per cent of adults are classified as overweight. Some 23 per cent are considered obese. One in five children is overweight. Liposuction is now the leading form of cosmetic surgery in the US, with 400,000 operations a year.
Ireland isn't immune from the international trend, either. Forty per cent of Irish men, and 25 per cent of women, are overweight, according to a report from the National Nutrition Surveillance Centre last December. About 12 per cent of men and 9 per cent of women are in the obese category. The poorer you are, the more likely it is you are overweight or obese.
Diet and lack of exercise are the two main causes behind the surge in waistlines, according to Ms Sharon Friel of the Department of Health Promotion in NUI Galway. "We in Ireland haven't reached the levels seen in the US, but we're heading in the same direction," she says.
In a world of food surpluses, there are 150 million underweight children in the developing world, nearly one in three. Surprisingly, obesity is on the rise in the developing world as well. Still struggling to eradicate infectious diseases, many developing countries' health systems could be crippled by growing caseloads of heart disease, cancer and other diseases.
pcullen@irish-times.ie
