(TIME.COM) Alice Park, October 12, 2017 — Global rates of childhood obesity have jumped dramatically in the past four decades, according to new research in the Lancet. The number of children ages 5-19 who are obese has increased ten-fold from 1975 to 2016, and rates are highest in Polynesia and Micronesia. Rates in high-income nations like the rest of Europe and the U.S. have plateaued, but they have not started to decline. The rates are lowest in Eastern Europe.
The latest trends emerge from more than 2,400 studies that documented the height and weight of nearly 130 million children from 1975 to 2016. The scientists, led by Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, used that information to calculate body mass index (BMI). Overall, the number of children and adolescents with obesity—defined by a measurement of age-calculated BMI by the World Health Organization—increased from 1975 to 2016 from five million to 50 million among girls, and from six million to 74 million among boys.
BMI among children increased from 1975 to 2016 in nearly every part of the world, including in most parts of Africa. While African regions still record relatively low prevalence of obesity, southern Africa saw the highest proportionate increase in obesity among children, at 400% per decade in the time period studied.
Source: Childhood Obesity Has Risen 10 Times Worldwide | Time.com