ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

To read the full abstract: N Engl J Med 2017;377:13-27

Other estimates of the global trends and projections in obesity have been published. In this regard, the current analysis provides similar, albeit equally worrying, data on the trends towards more obesity across all regions of the world. Moreover, a particular advance of this current study, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is to model the global burden of obesity with regard to its co-morbidities and mortality. In 2015, excess body weight accounted for ~4 million deaths and 120 million disability-adjusted life-years worldwide. A substantial proportion of these deaths and co-morbidities occurred in those who were within the overweight (non-obese) weight categories, suggesting that overweight is not safe or even advantageous for health as other had claimed. In many countries, the rate of increase in childhood obesity has been greater than the rate of increase in adult obesity and in 2015, China and India had the highest numbers of obese children. In 2013, the World Health Organization called for a halt in the increase in the prevalence of overweight among children and in recent years, several countries have announced national policies and targets with this aim. No major successes have yet been shown at a national level, but one of the most promising approaches world-wide to effectively reduce childhood obesity is the Amsterdam ‘whole city’ Healthy Weight Programme, which reported a “12% drop over three years in the proportion of overweight and obese children” (https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2534).