Obesity Statistics Show High Risk Of Cardiac Arrests, Diabetes And Cancer In Overweight Americans

The United States is leading the charts when it comes to obesity and obesity-related diseases, according to a study, published Monday. Thirteen percent of the total U.S. population, including adults and children, has been termed overweight.

In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it has been determined that more than two billion adults and children of the world are now obese and run the risk of diseases due to carrying excess weight. Out of them, 710 million were classified as obese, with 5 percent of all children and 12 percent of adults fitting into this category.

Data collected from 68.5 million people between 1980 and 2015 were analyzed by researchers to obtain the results regarding overweight and obesity rates, which revealed that obesity has doubled since 1980 in 73 countries of the world. It was also discovered that the U.S. has the highest number of obese adults (79.4 million), closely followed by China (57.3 million).

"People who shrug off weight gain do so at their own risk – risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and other life-threatening conditions," said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, who worked on the study, CNN reported.

Read: What To Eat When You Are Pregnant? Diet High In Refined Grains Could Cause Child's Obesity By Age 7

Most people have, at the end of some year or the other, made a New Year’s resolution to stick to a strict diet, avoid junk foods and lose weight, but then gave up halfway and forgotten all about it till the next year begins. But according to Murray, it’s time to take those resolutions seriously.

"Those half-serious New Year's resolutions to lose weight should become year-round commitments to lose weight and prevent future weight gain," he said.

Primary factors contributing toward the widespread growth of obesity across a large number of countries in the 21st Century are urbanization, poor diets and reduced physical activity, the study stated.

The quality of foods served in public schools has also been cited as the partial reason behind American children suffering from an early onset of obesity. A Washington Post report criticized President Donald Trump's administration for delaying the implementation of stricter nutrition standards for lunch meals at public schools, something that was championed by former first lady Michelle Obama.

Read: Obesity in US: New York Couple To Marry After Shedding 600 Pounds Together

The New England Journal of Medicine study also reflected that people who were not particularly obese but whose body weights were hovering between overweight and obesity (BMI of 25 to 29.9) run similar risks of suffering from obesity-related diseases as people who were obese (BMI over 30). 40 percent of four million people who died due to obesity-related diseases such as cardiovascular problems were overweight and not obese.

Since 2015, a year which recorded cardiac arrests and diabetes as the leading causes of deaths all over the world, claiming the lives of 2.7 million people, the number of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases has gone down. This is in spite of the fact that the number of people affected by the abovementioned diseases have gone up.

Advanced medical procedures that can control high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels becoming readily available in the developed countries is the main reason behind this. Goodarz Danaei, assistant professor or global health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has stated that clinical interventions cannot be the only solution to reducing obesity-related deaths as low-income countries cannot and other remote parts of the world do not enjoy the same benefits.