Overview
- Researchers with the NCD‑RisC published a Nature paper Wednesday that uses an obesity “velocity” metric to show diverging national trends and the largest year‑to‑year jumps in 2024 for women in 84 countries and men in 109.
- The study pooled height and weight data for 232 million people from more than 4,000 population‑based studies across 200 countries spanning 1980 to 2024.
- In many high‑income countries, gains have slowed or leveled off after earlier child plateaus in the 1990s and 2000s, with signs of declines now appearing in places such as France, Italy, and Portugal.
- The United States and the United Kingdom show child plateaus and slower adult increases but still rank high for adult obesity compared with other rich nations, underscoring a heavy health burden even where growth has eased.
- Most low‑ and middle‑income countries continue to see steady or faster rises, which experts tie to rapid urbanization and a shift toward ultra‑processed, energy‑dense foods, and the authors note that new GLP‑1 weight‑loss drugs are too recent to affect these data but could shape future trends depending on access.