YOUR HEALTH

Obesity and down the rabbit hole -- again

Are we all living in Alice’s Wonderland where everything becomes weirder and weirder?

Time magazine, June 16, 2014, p. 12, gives new figures from a recent University of Washington study on the increase worldwide in people who are overweight or obese. The total of the two groups is 2.1 billion.

Since the world’s current population is 7,241,027,026 as of 4:27 p.m. June 18, 2014 according to the worldometer clock (www.worldometers.info/world-population/) this means that  28.9% of the world’s men, women, children and elderly have a sweight problem --  or just under 1 in 3 humans on the planet.

How such a ridiculous figure could ever be arrived at or published by a credible university and Time magazine boggles the mind!!!

As the Washington study published in the Lancet is unavailable online, a Reuters summary is useful and fully quoted below with my yellow highlighting:

(Reuters) - Obesity is imposing an increasingly heavy burden on the world's population in rich and poor nations alike, with almost 30 percent of people globally now either obese or overweight - a staggering 2.1 billion in all, researchers said on Wednesday.

The researchers conducted what they called the most comprehensive assessment to date of one of the pressing public health dilemmas of our time, using data covering 188 nations from 1980 to 2013.

Nations in the Middle East and North Africa, Central America and the Pacific and Caribbean islands reached staggeringly high obesity rates, the team at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle reported in the Lancet medical journal.

The biggest obesity rises among women came in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Honduras and Bahrain. Among men, it was in New Zealand, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The richest country, the United States, was home to the biggest chunk of the planet's obese population - 13 percent - even though it claims less than 5 percent of its people.

Obesity is a complex problem fueled by the availability of cheap, fatty, sugary, salty, high-calorie "junk food" and the rise of sedentary lifestyles. It is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, diabetes, arthritis and certain cancers. Chronic complications of weight kill about 3.4 million adults annually, the U.N. World Health Organization says.

During the 33 years studied, rates of being obese or overweight soared 28 percent in adults and 47 percent in children. During that span, the number of overweight and obese people rose from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013.

That number exceeds the total world population of 1927, when it first hit 2 billion. Earth's population now tops 7 billion.

The researchers said obesity - once a malady of rich nations - now grips people of all ages, incomes and regions, with not one country succeeding in cutting its obesity rate.

"Two-thirds of the obese population actually resides in developing countries," said Marie Ng, a global health professor who was one of the researchers.

The problem was most acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with more than 58 percent of adult men and 65 percent of adult women overweight or obese. Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait saw big increases.

"We have to remind ourselves that obesity is really not a cosmetic issue. It's a main risk factor for morbidity and mortality," added global health professor Ali Mokdad, another of the researchers.

Obesity is appearing at increasing young ages, rising nearly 50 percent in children and adolescents worldwide.

Men tallied higher rates in developed countries. Women did so in developing countries. There was a possible ray of hope in rich countries, with the rate of increase in adult obesity slowing in the past eight years.

More than half of the world's obese live in just 10 countries: the United States, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia.

                           (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/28/us-health-obesity-idUSKBN0E82HX20140528)

 

The statistics Time highlighted for overweight and obese are:

Saudi Arabia   69.4%                U.S.                67.4%       Germany    61.1%

China              28.3%              India                19.5%

So, the people of the world are –supposedly – ballooning in size over the last 33 years: in all countries rich and poor, and children  as well.

The criteria used, of course, is the BMI, with any rating above 25 as ‘unhealthy’.

Again, I must protest this insanity and use of the flawed BMI standard.

Do the simple reality check i have recommended in the past:

Look at the adults, teens and children around you. Do only 32.6% of Americans or just 1 in 3 look as if they have a healthy weight or are too thin?

If you live in Germany, do only 38.9% , i./e. 2 in 5, look healthy or too thin?

And if you live in Saudi Arabia do only 3 in 10 people and children look healthy or too thin?

The BMI, I repeat, was never meant to be used for growing children under age 18, and is well known to have a white male bias in its original population sample studies.  It does not accurately reflect genetic differences between ethnic groups nor what has been historically diverse cultural norms and ideal.

It is far better to look at longevity tables.

The statistics below for life expectancy are from the World Bank.                                                                                                                                                       [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.FE.IN]                 

	1980  (World Bank)	2009 (World Bank)	2012 (World bank)
China	69	76	77 years
India	55	67	68 years
Germany	76	83	83  years
Saudi Arabia	65	77	77 years
U.S.	78	81	81 years

 

Every country that has become more prosperous or is living at first world standards has increased longevity since 1980 – the starting point of the University of Washington study.

Reaching age 75 was almost unknown in the 1960s and 1970s but is common by 2012 as seen above, and crossing the 80^th year mark has been attained by Americans and Germans.

Americans, the inventors of fast food in the 1950s and 1960s have managed to live longer even with so-called ‘demon’ French fries, hamburgers, KFC breaded chicken, pizza, pop and chocolate and ice cream galore as their dietary norm.

And the Germans, with ancestral diets high in meat and fat and beer, do not seem to be suffering – contrary to the BMI standard.

Remember, insurance companies advise people to be somewhat overweight if they wish to live longer lives --  as sudden illness or surgery or chemotherapy, etc. cause rapid weight loss and/or appetite loss that alone can lead to death.

So next time you see scary statistics re: BMI and obesity, etc., try not to fall down the rabbit hole into unreality and silliness.