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WORLDWIDE - obesity is threat to world health
American Fitness, May, 2001 by Lester R. Brown
Obesity Threatens Health in Exercise-Deprived Societies
Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions, afflicting a growing number of people in both industrial and developing countries. It is damaging human health by raising the incidence of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer, arthritis and adult onset diabetes. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 300,000 Americans die each year from obesity-related illnesses.
Obesity reduction has traditionally focused on lowering caloric intake through diet, but growing evidence shows that exercise deprivation is also a major contributing factor. With metabolic systems shaped by 4 million years of highly active hunting and gathering, many people may not be able to maintain a healthy body weight without regular exercise.
For the first time in history, the majority of adults in some societies are overweight. In the United States, 61 percent of all adults are overweight. In Russia, the figure is 54 percent; in the United Kingdom, 51 percent; and in Germany, 50 percent. For Europe as a whole, more than half of the adult population between 35 and 65 years of age is overweight.
The number of overweight people is also rising in developing countries. In Brazil, for example, 36 percent of the adult population is overweight. The same is true for 15 percent of Chinas adult population.
Not only are more people overweight than ever before, but their ranks are expanding at a record rate. In the United States, adult obesity increased by 50 percent between 1980 and 1994. Among Americans, 20 percent of men and 25 percent of women are more than 30 pounds overweight. Surveys in China show that between the boom years of 1989 and 1992, the number of overweight adults jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent.
Juvenile obesity is also rising rapidly. In the United States, where at least one out of 10 youngsters 6 to 17 years of age is overweight, the incidence of obesity among children has more than doubled over the last 30 years. Not only does juvenile obesity typically translate into adult obesity, but it also causes metabolic changes that make the disease difficult to treat in adulthood.
Obesity is concentrated in cities. As societies urbanize and people adopt sedentary lifestyles, obesity increases. In both China and Indonesia. the share of obese people in cities is double that in the countryside. In the Congo, obesity is six times higher in cities.
In a Worldwatch paper titled "Underfed and Overfed," Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil report that the number of overweight people has climbed to 1.1 billion worldwide, rivaling the number of undernourished and underweight. Peter Kopelman of the Royal London School of Medicine summarizes the thinking of the medical community: "Obesity should no longer be regarded simply as a cosmetic problem affecting certain individuals, but [as] an epidemic that threatens global well-being."
Health damage from obesity takes many forms. In addition to the illnesses noted earlier, heavier body weight increases resistance to the heart's pumping of blood, thus elevating blood pressure. It also raises the stress on joints, often causing lower back pain. Those who are obese are four times as likely to have diabetes as those who are not.
As weight increases, life expectancy decreases. Analyzing this relationship in Americans between the ages of 30 and 42, one broad-based study found that the risk of death within 26 years increased by 1 percent with each surplus pound of weight.
The estimated 300,000 Americans who die prematurely each year as a result of being overweight is nearing the 400,000 who die prematurely from cigarette smoking. However, there is one difference. The number of cigarettes smoked per person in the United States is on the decline, falling some 42 percent between 1980 and 1999, whereas obesity is on the rise. If recent trends continue, it is only a matter of time before deaths from obesity-related illnesses overtake those related to smoking.
Gaining weight is generally a result of consuming more calories than are burned. Because of modernization, caloric intake has climbed. Over the: last two decades, caloric intake in the United States has risen nearly 10 percent for men and 7 percent for women. Modern diets are rich in fat and sugar. In addition to sugars that occur naturally in food, the average American diet includes 20 added teaspoons of sugar a day, much of it in soft drinks and prepared foods. Unfortunately, diets in developing countries, especially in urban areas, are moving in the same direction.
While caloric intake has been rising, exercise has been declining. The latest U.S. survey shows that 57 percent of Americans exercise only occasionally or not at all, a number that corresponds closely with the share of the population that is overweight.
Economic modernization has systematically eliminated exercise from our lives. Workers commute by car from home to work, driving quite literally from door to door. Automobiles have eliminated daily walking and cycling. Elevators and escalators have replaced stairs. Leisure time is spent watching television. In the United Kingdom, the two lifestyle variables that correlate most closely with obesity are television viewing and automobile ownership.
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