Obesity statistics

Statistics and estimates as reported by the The International Obesity Task Force, the US Census, WHO World Health Report and other organizations indicates the enormity of the world wide obesity problem:

• Over 300 million people worldwide are obese and 750 million more are overweight.
• More than 22 million of the world’s children under 5 are overweight or obese.
• In some parts of Africa, fatness and obesity afflicts more children than malnutrition does – sometimes four times as many, a study showed that 0.7 percent of children are showing features of malnutrition, but over 3 percent are overweight or obese.
• In the United States about 13 percent of children are overweight or obese.
• In some countries, more than 30 percent of the children are obese.
• In the USA the percentage of overweight children between the ages of 6-and 11 has nearly doubled since the the 1980’s.
• Six million American adults have a BMI 40+ and are classed as morbidly obese (BMI of 40+), almost twice as high as in 1980, while another 9.6 million have a BMI of 35-40.
• About 60% of American adults are overweight, that is 39.8 million people.
• In 2008 Americans spent more than $40 billion on diets and weight loss products and diet and weight loss supplements reached sales of $16.1 billions. About 20 000 different products are produced by more than 1 000 manufacturers. These products are used by a estimated by 100 million Americans.
• The economic cost of obesity is immense, in the USA the direct medical costs of obesity are calculated at more than $93 billion a year.
• According to the US National Institutes of Health, obesity and overweight are the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States and an estimated 300,000 deaths per year are caused by obesity.

If you need to lose weight there is no point in postponing or looking for excuses, you need to take positive action and to start doing something about the situation! Why not start by looking at our quick weight loss advice or at selected weight loss programs and diets.