60% of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050: study – CTV

March 03, 2025

Nearly 60 percent of all adults and a third of all children in the world will be overweight or obese by 2050 unless governments take action, a large new study said Tuesday.

The research published in the Lancet medical journal used data from 204 countries to paint a grim picture of what it described as one of the great health challenges of the century.

“The unprecedented global epidemic of overweight and obesity is a profound tragedy and a monumental societal failure,” lead author Emmanuela Gakidou, from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), said in a statement.

The number of overweight or obese people worldwide rose from 929 million in 1990 to 2.6 billion in 2021, the study found.

Without a serious change, the researchers estimate that 3.8 billion adults will be overweight or obese in 15 years — — or around 60 percent of the global adult population in 2050.

The world’s health systems will come under crippling pressure, the researchers warned, with around a quarter of the world’s obese expected to be aged over 65 by that time.

Read more: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/60-of-adults-will-be-overweight-or-obese-by-2050-study/