“Europe is going to face a huge crisis” by 2030. This is word for word the warning issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) at a European congress on obesity in Prague. If the words are strong, they do not designate either an ecological crisis or an economic crisis, but a health crisis: an epidemic ofobesity on the continent.
This conclusion stems from projections made in 53 European countries, on behalf of the WHO European regional office based in Copenhagen. And the numbers speak for themselves. By 2030, almost the entire Irish adult population will be overweight or obese. More precisely, 89% of Irish men are expected to be overweight by 2030, of which 48% will probably be obese, against 74% and 26% respectively in 2010. Among Irish women, the same observation: the proportion of overweight women will drop from 57 to 85 % between 2010 and 2030.
The projections are equally alarming for Britain, with 33% of obese women (Body Mass Index over 30) in 15 years, up from 26% in 2010, and 36% of obese men up from 26% ago. 5 years. Spain, Greece, Sweden and the Czech Republic should also see the proportion of obese adults increase by 2030. In Greece, for example, the obese population should double from 20% to 40% of adults in 2030.
In the end, a large majority of the 53 countries included in the study will see an increase in the proportion of obese and overweight adults. Only a few countries would see these figures decrease or stabilize. In the Netherlands, for example, only 8% of men are expected to be obese in 2030, up from 10% in 2010.
The authors of this study nevertheless stress that these projections must be interpreted with “the most extreme caution”. For the British Laura Webber, co-signer of the study, it paints “the worrying picture of the rise in obesity in Europe. We urgently need policies to reverse the trend, ”emphasizes the specialist.
Diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, are all diseases for which obesity and overweight are major risk factors. Stopping the obesity epidemic would therefore be an effective way of reducing the risk of complications that reduce thelife expectancy and are costly to our health systems.
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